Most Beautiful
by RoseTintsMyWorld97
Summary: "Well, it all started when you were born."
1. Isn't She Lovely?

Basically my take on what was going on in Riff and Mag's lives before they came to Earth with Frank N Furter. This will be part of a trilogy of sorts; the next fanfic will focus on the events on Earth before the night where Brad and Janet came into the picture, and the one after that will be my own version of a sequel to RHPS. Hope you all enjoy!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its characters belong to Richard O'Brien.

Name: Most Beautiful

Genre: Angst/Romance

Fandom: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Rating: M (for child abuse, language, violence, and eventual sex scenes between siblings.)

Summary: "Well, it all started when you were born."

Pairings: Riff Raff/Magenta

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Isn't She Lovely?**

 _The alarm beeped loudly, startling Riff Raff awake. He turned quickly to slap it onto snooze, so that it would not rouse the two people in the room with him. With a long draw of breath he reached to push the faint strands of blonde hair out of his eyes. His face turned to the woman in bed next to him; his sister, his best friend, and his lover. Magenta slept on her stomach, her face turned toward him, eyes shut and wild red hair covering half her face. He leaned over to gently brush it away, before placing a soft kiss on her temple. She stirred slightly, but didn't open her eyes._

 _Riff Raff got out of the bed, trying to disturb her as little as he could. Sliding on his robe over his pajamas, he walked to where the third member of their little family lie. A baby, less than two weeks old, sound asleep in her bassinet. Red blankets covered the little one up to her chin, and a few short red curls poked their way out of her crocheted hat._

 _"Is she still sleeping?" came a whisper._

 _Riff Raff looked up to see that Magenta had opened her eyes and turned to face him. Her black nightgown was wrinkled and loose; easy to remove, in case the child needed to be fed._

 _"Yes," Riff Raff tiptoed away from the bassinet and toward his sister, wrapping his arms around her before muttering, "and it's a good thing she is; I think this is the first night since she was born that she hasn't woken us up before the alarm."_

 _"Doesn't mean I'm not still tired out of my mind," Magenta said against his chest. "And with all the breastfeeding, my damn boobs have never been this sore."_

 _"I can massage them for you," Riff Raff teased._

 _"Ha ha." Magenta said sarcastically. She stood up and quietly walked to the baby, reaching in to adjust the blankets before motioning at Riff Raff to follow her out of the room. They barely made their way past the door when the child started to cry._

 _With a sigh and a mutter of "Damn," Magenta went back into the room. Riff Raff stayed in the doorway and watched as she pulled down part of her nightgown to breastfeed the infant. She cooed soft words to their daughter as she lifted her to her chest._

 _Their daughter._

 _Riff Raff still couldn't believe they had a daughter. They'd been on the ship home, merely a day after killing Frank N Furter, when Magenta had told him she was pregnant. Nothing could compare to the shock he'd felt that day. Nothing could compare to the joy he'd felt eight months later when their child, Sienna, had been born._

 _"I still cannot fathom that we are parents," he said._

 _Magenta looked up at him. "I still can't fathom that we made it out of that hell hole called Earth and back here."_

 _Riff Raff nodded. "Or that we are able to lead a normal life."_

 _"As much as I dislike Carmilla Furter," Magenta said, "the woman made good on her promise to us."_

 _He nodded. "I'm just happy to be able to spend my life with you, my love."_

 _"It's mutual," Magenta said with a grin, making her way over to him to give him a kiss. Sienna let out a squeak between them._

 _"How in the universe," Magenta said, shifting her hold so that Sienna was supported better, "did we end up here?"_

 _Now it was Riff Raff's turn to grin. "Well, it all started when you were born."_

* * *

It was well past bedtime and Mother and Father were still arguing. Riffy was used to it by now, and he wouldn't have minded so much tonight if not for the baby.

Mother's belly was huge, swollen up to twice its normal size. When she told him there was a baby in there, a new sister just for him, he couldn't help but wonder if she'd eaten it. When he'd asked her this she'd brushed him off, but he still had a burning suspicion. How else would a baby find its way into Mother's tummy?

Riffy was three and a half and fairly bright for his age. He questioned everything, and expected no question to go unanswered. Sometimes this made Father angry at him; Riffy's constant "why?" "how come?" and "really?" questions irritated Father enough to earn Riffy smacks across the face. He'd learned quickly not to ask Father anything anymore.

From his questions that got answered by Mother, though, he knew that she had to take it easy because of the baby. Whether she'd eaten it or not, it was growing in there, and growing things didn't need to be hurt.

When he heard the glass break, he winced, curling the blanket tighter around his skinny body. He looked at the bare walls of his room, cracked and blue and dark. There used to be pictures on his wall of himself with his parents, but Father had torn them down and broken them in one of his fits of rage. There were few playthings in the room; a wooden doll missing one of its legs, a dirty little toy car, a few torn coloring books, and a toy laser that didn't light up anymore. These were all Riffy's, and so far he hadn't seen his parents bring home any new toys for the baby. There was a large metal crib for her in the corner of the room, but all it had was a bare mattress. Riffy himself slept on a big cot on the floor, with only a few thin blankets and one dirty pillow.

More yelling drifted through the crack in the doorway. His mother seemed to be screaming now, that was never a good sign. . . . she only screamed when she was really about to cry. He hated it when she cried. He hated that it was Father that made her cry so much. He wished they'd just stop yelling and go to bed. The baby in Mother's belly was probably needing sleep too and couldn't get it because of the argument.

The screaming from Mother continued, but it sounded. . . . different. Different from her usual crying scream. This sounded like a scream of pain. Riffy bolted up in bed. Had Father hit her again? No, he wouldn't, not with the baby in her tummy. . . . maybe he should get up and check. . . .

Riffy slid out the door and tiptoed to the living room, where the argument seemed to be taking place. He was greeted with a confusing sight; his mother was on her knees, clutching her swollen middle, screaming in agony. There was a bit of blood visible on her thigh, and she was yelling " _An ambulance, Vandal, get me an ambulance, the baby - !_ "

Father was on the phone, talking quickly, "My wife, she's going into labor - her name? Lavender Vitus - bleeding out her crotch - dammit, stop screaming, Lavender, I'm trying to talk! - yes - my name is Vandal Vitus - our address -"

"Mother?" Riffy scrambled into the room and toward his mother's bleeding form. He went to put his small hands on her shoulders, but she knocked him away with her arm.

"Stay back, Riffy, Mother's hurt, Mother's in pain. . . ." she was breathing frantically, her blue eyes wide enough to pop out of her head. He went to reach for her again, wanting to help, wanting to save the baby, but his father aimed a kick at him and he was jerked away from her.

"Stay out of it, Riff Raff, you'll just make it worse!" Father snapped, his face the same vivid red as his hair. He'd hung up the phone and turned to his wife. "Ambulance is on the way, you gotta stay calm, Lav - "

"I can't. . . . I'm in so much. . . . pain. . . ." Her eyelids fluttered, and her curly blonde hair was sticking to the sides of her pale face as the sweat rolled down. She leaned back and let out another wheeze. The image of her sitting there, blood now slick against her thighs, staining her short nightgown, making a puddle on the floor. . . . it would be burned into Riffy's mind forever.

The ambulance came within ten minutes, but in those ten minutes Mother started to scream again, this time violently accusing Father of doing something to poison her and the baby. Another argument ensued.

"How _dare_ you insinuate I'd try to kill my daughter, if I wanted you dead I'd wait until she was already born, you fucking bitch, how fucking dare you -"

"You want me gone, don't you, it's what you've always wanted, isn't it Vandal?! You don't even want Riffy, why would you want a daughter as well -"

Riffy had tried to tell them to stop fighting, but this only resulted in more screaming from Father, this time directed at him, and a harsh shove from Mother. So Riffy kept quiet and sat in the corner, aching a bit from his father's kick, watching the blood stain the carpet.

When the paramedics finally arrived his mother was lifted onto a stretcher and carried out of the apartment. Father followed after them, yelling about how he "didn't poison the bitch."

No one seemed to remember Riffy, or see him sitting there in the living room corner. When the ambulance drove away with Father hurrying his car after them, he was left alone.

Twelve hours passed.

He slept a bit. Went to the fridge and got some sweets. Turned on the television. Played with his toy laser. Avoided the broken glass and bloodstains on the floor. He was grateful for the house to be so quiet, for once. He was so used to hearing his parents yelling at each other or the sounds of something breaking that silence had become golden to him. It never occurred to him until he was older that he had been completely abandoned for a good half a day, and that this was quite illegal. But in that moment, he was merely happy to be without so much noise.

He could eventually hear them arguing again outside the door over the sounds of the television. When it opened, Father was running his hand through his receding red hair and going on about how Mother had overreacted, the pain couldn't have been that bad, she was just angry because she'd ruined her precious carpet with all the blood. Mother was saying to hush up or he'd wake the baby, and that no, she certainly was not angry about that, that was not her fault, it was his fault she'd been in such an emotional state anyway. . . .

In truth, Riffy was a bit too focused on the red bundle of blankets in his mother's arms to really hear what they were saying. Mother was holding it carefully, as if whatever was inside was made of the finest of glass. Riffy followed her into his room, where his father parted ways with them and made a beeline for the master bedroom.

Mother began softly murmuring to the bundle, and told Riffy to come look as she laid it down in the bare crib. He saw a tiny pink hand slip outside of the blankets, and when he pressed his pale little face to the bars, he could see the baby's head: round and red, with no hair, closed eyes, pouty lips, and a squashed in little nose.

"Mother," he whispered, "why does she look so ugly?"

At this his mother smacked him on the back of the head, scolding, "Don't you ever call your sister ugly again, Riff Raff, how would you like it if someone called you ugly?"

Riffy was quiet, but he still thought the same thing in his head: his little sister was ugly. But Mother smiled and reached in to stroke one of those ruddy cheeks and whispered, "Her name is Magenta. Isn't she lovely?"


	2. I Would Die For You

Aaand here's chapter two. I'm not even sure at this point if anyone's read chapter one, but oh well. I still want to continue this story, ha ha.

I don't own Rocky Horror.

* * *

 **Chapter 2: I Will Die For You**

 _Magenta snorted a bit after Riff Raff finished that part of the story. "You really thought I was ugly, huh?"_

 _"Quite," Riff Raff said, giving her the most serious look he could muster. "I thought you were the ugliest little girl I'd ever seen."_

 _"Oh, I'm wounded," Magenta put a hand over her heart and pretended to be physically hurt. From her place in the crook of Magenta's other arm, Sienna made a small noise in the back of her throat._

 _"See? Sienna even agrees that that was awfully cruel of you." Magenta shifted her daughter so that the child's head lay against her shoulder, and she began to pat on her back. "Don't you, love? Father wasn't kind to Mother at all, was he?"_

 _"Alas, I was not," Riff Raff said with a grin. "And for the first four years of your life I thought you were the brattiest child in existence. Not that you didn't deserve those thoughts; you were loud, rowdy, and awfully fond of making my life harder."_

 _"I prefer to think of myself as spirited, tough, and always bothering you because you were my favorite person in the world." Magenta said._

 _"Now, why don't I believe that?" Riff Raff teased._

 _"I'm not sure why. I mean, it's true," Magenta lowered her voice a bit and stopped smiling. "You would always play with me and be kind to me. You never pulled my hair or stole my toys like other kids did. Father was always yelling about something. I spent a lot of time learning how to dodge his fists. Mother. . . ." she paused. "I don't even remember Mother."_

 _"There's a good reason for that," Riff Raff said. He moved his position on their bed so that he was leaning on the headboard. Magenta looked at him curiously, and only tore her gaze away when Sienna burped and spit up a bit on her bare shoulder._

 _Riff Raff chuckled. "Good thing we keep the baby wipes in here. Anyway, like I said, it was the first four years of your life that I thought those things about you. After you turned four, something happened that made me realize I couldn't hate you anymore. I had to protect you and love you instead."_

 _"What happened?" Magenta said, having laid Sienna down so that she could clean her shoulder with a baby wipe._

 _"Mother left."_

* * *

Riffy was awaken by the sounds of someone crying outside of his room. It was soft crying, but he'd always been a very light sleeper - in contrast to Magenta, who could probably sleep through a hurricane. He looked across the room to his sister's crib, where she lay snoring slightly. All he could see was that mop of curly red hair sticking out of her blankets.

He crept off of his cot and to the door, cracking it a bit to see if he could get a glimpse of who was crying. Down the hallway, he could see the faint figure of his mother, on the couch with her head in her hands.

Riffy slid out the door and padded to the living room, to be greeted with an unusual sight. Mother was fully dressed, despite it being well past bedtime; her bushy blonde hair was brushed, her shoes were on. There was one small suitcase next to her. She was shaking with gentle sobs, and pulled her face out of her hands to run a few fingers through her hair. Her makeup was completely done, but her mascara and eyeliner were running.

"Mother?" he said.

She jumped a bit when she heard him. She turned to look at him, and her eyes filled with tears again. "Riffy, baby, what are you doing up so late? You know it's past your bedtime. . . ." a few more tears dropped from her eyes.

"It's past your bedtime, too, Mother," Riffy said, crawling onto the couch to lean on her side. She let out a few more broken sobs as she wrapped her arms around him. Her shaking hand stroked his hair, and she muttered, "Tell your father that you need a haircut, Riffy, it's getting so long. . . ."

"Why can't you take me to get a haircut?"

At this question she broke down again, burying her face into his shoulder and murmuring, "I'm sorry, my little love, I'm so sorry. . . ."

"Why are you sorry?" He felt his mind explode with questions. "Why are you crying? Why are you dressed up? Why do you have a suitcase? Why -"

"Riff Raff, that's enough!" His mother snapped, pulling away from him. She looked angry now, but her blue eyes were still brimming with tears. "Don't you ever get tired of asking all these questions?"

"But Mother -"

" _Don't_ -" she raised her hand and he winced, realizing it was time to shut his mouth.

Mother breathed in heavily, her eye twitching a bit as she lowered her hand. "Riffy," she said, her voice quaking, "Mother loves you. You know that, right?"

Riffy nodded.

"You and your sister are my world. You know that, right? That I'll do anything for the two of you? That I will die for you?"

Riffy now felt himself wanting to cry. "Mother, what -"

"Shhh," she stroked his hair again and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "Mother has to leave for a while. I can't. . . . Riffy, I just can't _do_ this anymore. . . . I love you and your sister, I love your father, but I can't do this. I can't keep living like this. I'm depressed all the time, I fight with Vandal every day, you kids are such a _handful_. . . ."

The tears started to fall from his eyes, but he didn't speak. _Mother,_ he thought, _what are you saying?_

"I want you to make me a promise," Mother said. "I want you to watch over your sister. I want you to protect her for me. Keep her safe and loved. Can you do that?"

"But -"

"Can you do that, Riff Raff?"

". . . . yes, Mother, I promise, but -"

"Good."

Just then, there was a knock on the door. A rough voice called out, "Lavender?"

Mother got up quickly, grabbing her suitcase. She looked so broken, with all that running makeup on her face, but her eyes went from wet and sad to determined. "You're a good son, Riff Raff," she said. "A good son. . . . and a good big brother."

With that, she went and opened the door. Riffy only got a glimpse of the man on the other side; he looked old and rugged, and took Mother's suitcase from her before she stepped out, shutting the door behind her.

Riffy sat for a few moments, unsure of what to do, the tears continuing to streak down his face. Then he jumped up suddenly and sped to the door, tearing it open, only to catch a glimpse of a sleek black car pulling out of the apartment complex's parking lot. He cried "Mother!" and ran to it, across the parking lot, leaving the door wide open. But it was too late, the car had pulled away, he couldn't see his mother through the dark windows.

"Mother! _Mother!_ " His screams echoed across the complex, and he tried to keep running, but the car was going away, carrying his mother farther away from him, and soon he was on the sidewalk, wheezing, falling to his knees and sobbing harder than he ever had in all seven years of his life.

He wasn't sure how long he was there, but he soon found himself trudging back to the apartment, his tiny body shaking, his world feeling like it had collapsed around him. He shut the door behind him and went to the cracked doorway of the master bedroom. Poking his head in, he could see Father fast asleep, snoring loudly. _Does he know?_ Riffy thought. A cold feeling in his chest told him that Father didn't.

He walked quietly back to his and Magenta's shared room. Closing the door behind him, he made to go back to his cot, but soon found himself at his sister's crib instead. Now that he was closer, he could see more than just her hair; he could see her body curled up, cramped inside a crib that was way too small for her. He saw her pale face and rosy cheeks and a light dust of freckles, those long spidery eyelashes, and that toy gong that she was so attached to propped up on one side of the crib.

"Genta?" he said. She didn't stir.

He sighed a bit and gripped one of the bars to her crib. "I told Mother I'd take care of you," he whispered to her. "I told her I would love you and protect you. I'm gonna do that, okay? I'm gonna do everything she asked."

Magenta still slept soundly. It was here, for the first time in forever, that Riffy appreciated how pretty his little sister really was, despite how irritating she could be. "And I'm sorry I ever called you ugly," he whispered.


	3. Look After You

Chapter three, now up!

I don't own RHPS or the lyrics to Time Warp.

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Look After You**

 _There was silence in the bathroom as Riff Raff finished this part of the story. Magenta had laid Sienna down in her bassinet to rest, and the siblings were now getting ready for the day. They were dressed in identical white shirts, leather skirts and black blazers, with long fishnets and high heels. Magenta was working her hair into her signature beehive style; Riff Raff had already tied his hair into its ponytail and was now applying a light amount of eyeliner._

" _You know what I think?" Magenta said, after the quiet had stretched for five minutes._

" _What do you think?"_

" _I think Mother was filled with to the brim with bullshit." She picked up her hairspray and sprayed a generous amount into her red locks, molding it into the round shape. "I don't think she really loved us at all. If she did, she would've taken us with her."_

" _I don't know about that," Riff Raff said, having finished his eyeliner and now hooking on a gold necklace. "I think she loved us, but was too scared and didn't know how to be a mother. She was sixteen when I was born. Nineteen when you were. Not much more than a child."_

" _That doesn't excuse what she did. She left us with him. She knew how violent he was. She knew he wasn't a good parent." Magenta inhaled deeply. "Mother. . . . she doesn't even deserve that title from me._ Lavender _could've at least handed us over to the government. Maybe then we wouldn't have had to lead such shitty lives."_

 _Riff Raff stopped what he was doing and looked closely at her. "But think about this: if we hadn't had the lives we did, would we be here now? Would we have Sienna?"_

 _Magenta didn't answer._

 _Sienna cried from the next room. "Probably needs a diaper change, I'll get her," Riff Raff muttered. He went to where his daughter was and scooped her up, only taking one breath through his nose to know that Sienna did indeed need a changing. Taking out the baby wipes and grabbing a fresh diaper, her laid her out on the floor to change her, cooing to her all the while._

" _Someone ate a bit too much, didn't she? How is it that someone so small can take in so much milk? Oh wow, Sienna, you need a bath today, you smell like a sewage. . . . but you're still beautiful, you know that? Almost as beautiful as your mother. I'd always hoped you'd come out looking more like her than me. . . ."_

 _He didn't notice Magenta in the doorway watching him until he stood up with their freshly-changed daughter in his arms. They made eye contact, and it was several moments before she spoke._

" _Do you think Father ever treated to us as well as you treat Sienna?"_

 _The question caught him a bit off guard. Riff Raff thought about it, tried to dig in his memory for something resembling affection from Vandal Vitus, and for a moment nothing came to mind. But then he remembered one day, one moment where Father had been. . . . if not affectionate and loving, then at least cordial with them. It was probably the only day in his memory, but it was there._

 _Rocking Sienna, Riff Raff said quietly, "Well, there was one time. . . ."_

* * *

Magenta was bouncing up and down in her chair too much at the breakfast table, so Riffy gave up on trying to brush her hair for her. She wasn't particularly fond of having it brushed, anyway, and it was fluffy enough that it'd be hard to notice any knots.

"What's for breakfast? Eggs? Toast with jam? Pancakes? Bacon? . . ." she continued to list off a bunch of foods that they didn't have, and her babble went unbroken until Riffy dropped a few large slices of fruit onto her plate.

"Grapefruit."

" _Awwwww_ , but that's not _yummyyyy_ ," she moaned, moving from her bounce to a slump and a pout. Riffy saw a few unbuttoned buttons on the back of her romper and went to fix them.

"No," he said, "but we'll be getting some better stuff later."

"What kinda stuff?" Magenta turned to face him, a curious look on her round face. Her eyes were as green as their father's, but hers were shining with a much stronger sense of innocence.

" _Good_ stuff," Riffy said. "We'll get you pancakes and bacon and a lot of scrambled eggs, if you want. But first," he pointed to the grapefruit. "You gotta eat something healthier. I want you to grow up to be big, and you gotta eat something healthy to do that."

"But _Riffyyyy_ -"

"You gotta," he said firmly, pushing the grapefruit toward his sister. She groaned in protest, but picked up a slice of grapefruit and chewed it grudgingly.

"It's healthy," Riffy said with a bright smile. _And it's the only non-moldy food we've got._

Their father came into the room, straightening his jumpsuit and muttering about how he was going to be late for work again. He worked in construction, and from what Riffy had heard he was currently building on a new mansion far away. He was often late for work and made up for that by being late home; by the time their father would stumble through the door, covered in dirt and rubble, Riffy had usually already put Magenta to bed.

Now their father was looking in a mirror on the living room wall, smoothing out what little hair he had left and muttering, "Good enough," before heading for the door. He paused before opening it, and spared an aside glance to his two children.

"Morning, kids," he spoke in a gruff voice.

"Good morning, Father," they said, their speech identical in tone. It was rare that their father acknowledged them, when not to yell at them, and they'd both learned to keep their voices neutral and low when talking with him.

"I got to go to work now," he said. "But I'm going to come back early and I want you two to meet me at the park. Okay?"

Magenta gave Riffy a quizzical look, but he only said, "Okay, Father."

"Okay," Father repeated, before turning and disappearing out the door. A moment later, they heard the car turn on in front of their apartment and pull out of the driveway.

"What was that all about?" Magenta said, her mouth full of grapefruit.

"I don't know," Riffy said. He stole a glance at the clock, and said, "But you're going to have to finish that food real soon. We gotta go."

* * *

It was the early hours of nightfall and the city of Aldous was alive.

The people of the planet Transsexual were nocturnal, and when the world was bathed in moonlight was when it was the most active. In Aldous, the capital of the country of Orwell, the people walked with high heels and gold skirts, wore bright makeup and had their hair cut into strange shapes. The buildings were silver, glinting in the light of the full white moon. The streets were gray and ashen, not as bright and colorful as the people who walked them, or the shiny cars that drove on them. When one looked up one could see the richer people flying hovercrafts through the air, between the dark corners of skyscrapers, with strange breeds of white and black birds flying with them. The occasional blue-leafed tree was planted on a corner or two, with people walking their purebred dogs pausing to let the animal mark the area. And of course, there was the moaning; it seemed that no matter where one went on the entire planet, one could not escape the eternal moans from buildings and alleyways, from cars and bushes. The moaning of people giving themselves over to absolute pleasure, always present and never shied away from or treated as taboo, as it might be treated on Earth.

As Riffy and Magenta walked the streets, her hand firmly grasped in his, they were regarded as a sort of elephant in the room. Just from the look of them, you could tell where they came from: the inner city, the poorer part of town. Surrounded by people in extravagant jewels and clothes, these two children quite obviously didn't belong. There was the boy, with his shoulder-length blonde hair in bad need of a trim for all the split ends, his baggy gray dress torn at the skirt and his shoes battered and dirty, his body too thin and too frail-looking, his skin too grayish in tone. The girl looked better cared for, but her pink romper was still a bit stained, her shoes still a little holey, her mane of red hair still a bit knotted. Most of the people who walked the streets regularly knew the children by sight, but not their names or why they were never accompanied by an adult. No one ever spoke to or about them. They were simply there, nothing more to be discussed.

They had roughly an hour and a half before they had to be at school, so Riffy decided to make good on his promise to get Magenta some real breakfast. And since they had no money, there was only one way he could do this: theft.

He told his sister to wait on the steps of an office building right next to an expensive restaurant, and after a good five minutes of lecturing her not to move or talk to strangers, he slipped into the alleyway between the two buildings. He had the door to the restaurant kitchens in his sight, and could hear the chefs on the other side, arguing about something or other. The alley was dark and he had to listen for any creepers that might jump out at him, but he heard nothing. And when the doorway opened and a chef came out to dispose of some waste, Riffy slipped in after him.

In truth, he was hard to notice, when he wanted to be. He kept to the darkest corners of the white kitchen, small enough and quiet enough to go unseen by the extremely busy chefs. He slipped around the various counters, eventually finding the plates, and slipped on under his arm silently. A chef came turned his way and he ducked under a table. On his hands and knees, he padded across the floor, under the shadowy counters, relying on his nose to guide him across the kitchen.

 _Waffles. . . . sausage. . . . orange juice. . . . pancakes!_

He smelled them right above him, and paused where he was. A chef was in front of him, only her legs visible from his place under the table. He took the plate out from its place wedged between his arm and side, and crouched, waiting for the chef to move. . . .

As soon as she did he shot up, one little hand darting out onto the stack of freshly-made pancakes on the tabletop, and plucked two from the pile. He quickly placed them on the plate, shaking out his hand just a bit from the heat of the pancakes. Now hunching forward to carry the plate with both hands, he continued across the kitchen

Soon there were two strips of bacon and a pile of scrambled eggs on the plate as well. Now all he needed was a fork. . . .

He spotted them among the noise and clutter; a cup of freshly washed forks right next to a sink. He managed to slip over to them unseen, made sure no chefs were looking his way, and went to grab one. . . .

"Hey!"

A large chef had spotted him and was pointing their butcher knife at him. "What're you doing here - ?"

Riffy had no need to be careful now; he grabbed a fork, knocking the cup over in the process, and with the plate held at a steady parallel to the floor, he bolted.

"Stop that kid!" the chef yelled, and the others looked up, some in annoyance, some in curiosity, some in confusion. Riffy was already halfway to the door, weaving his way around them.

The chef who saw him started to barrell after him, knocking the others over, earning them several yells and protests. Riffy tore the door open and sped out into the alleyway.

Instead of going immediately to his sister, he ran to the other side of the alley, out to a different street altogether. The chef chased after him, yelling at him to bring back the food he stole, but Riffy was zig-zagging through the people on the streets, and they were careless enough to not question him.

He could still hear the chef's yelling in the distance, but Riffy, having the advantage of being small and nimble, had lost them. He wiped his forehead of sweat and looked to make sure the food on the plate was still there. . . . yes, it was all present. Two pancakes, two strips of bacon, and a pile of scrambled eggs. And a fork.

Carefully he cut through another alleyway and made his way back to his sister, who, true to her word, was still sitting by the steps of the office building, swinging her legs and humming some mindless tune. When she saw him, her face broke into a grin, showing off her two missing front teeth.

"Riffy! You're back! You took forever!" she said, bouncing onto her feet and skipping toward him. He almost dropped the plate when she crashed into him, hugging him tightly around the middle.

"I am back," Riffy said. "And I got you some _good_ breakfast."

Magenta squealed in excitement when he handed her the plate. The moved to sit down on a curb, under a blue planted tree, and she gulped up her pancakes.

Riffy's stomach growled, but he didn't complain; his job was to feed Magenta. He could eat later, at school. She never questioned the rareness of his meals, anyway.

So he was a bit more surprised when she handed him the plate and fork, still filled with eggs and bacon. "Your turn," she said.

"I got this for you," Riffy said after a pause. "It's yours. Eat it."

"Naw, I got enough." Magenta patted her belly. "Too full from the grapefruit." She gave him another toothless smile. "Please have it?"

Riffy opened his mouth to protest again, but one set look from his sister told him that her mind could not be changed. So he took the plate and helped himself to the tastiest bacon and eggs he'd ever had.

* * *

Class was its usual boring affair. Riffy sat in the back, doodling melting clocks and lobster telephones. The teacher droned on and on about history, perhaps Riffy's least favorite subject. He was in Class 5, with the other ten-year-olds; he'd dropped Magenta off at Class 2, with the other seven-year-olds. Normally, he'd be sitting in front, trying to pay attention, but the other children would spit spitballs at him and poke him with pencils from behind, so he had resigned himself to the back. Here it was harder for the other kids to torment him, but they still found ways. Just an hour ago Riffy had been sent a paper airplane, with the message inside calling him a "filthy son of a bitch."

On the board in front was a picture of the current royal family. The Great and Fabulous Furters. There was the Queen Rosemary Furter, the current ruler of all of Transsexual, a short, stout woman with harsh brown eyes and a large nose. Her consort and king, Edgar A. P. Furter, stood tall and regal next to her, making Riffy wonder what he ever saw in such an ugly woman. Their children stood near them; the eldest and first in line for the throne, Howard P. Furter, a teenage boy with long braided black hair; second in line was Frank N. Furter, about Riffy's age with wild curly hair and lots of makeup; and the one princess, Carmilla Furter, a pretty young thing who couldn't have been older than five.

". . . . and our current ruler, Old Queen Rosemary, who recently passed a bill to raise taxes to pay for military invasion of other planets. . . ."

The babble continued.

Riffy felt a crumpled paper ball hit him on the side of his arm. He ignored it. Another one came, along with a harsh "Psssst!" from beside him. He didn't respond.

When a third paper ball came can hit him in the head, he finally turned toward his attacker. " _What_?" he hissed

The boy throwing them was Marvel De Lordy, a large boy with silver teeth and expensive clothes. He grinned his shiny smile at Riffy, a cruel glint in his eye. "Hey, Vitus," he said. "Wanna play after class?"

"No." Riffy turned away to look at the board again. He felt a sharp stab of a pencil in his arm.

"Come on, Vitus, you know you wanna play with me," the other boy taunted. "Or do you have to go pick up that pretty little sister of yours?"

Riffy felt his teeth grind, but he stayed silent.

The teacher left and a new one came in, this time ready to teach the class about science. Riffy's favorite subject. He leaned forward eagerly; today's lecture would be on extraterrestrial life.

De Lordy poked him with the pencil again. "Why don't you bring your cute sister with you? You could introduce us. I'd like to get to know her."

"I'm trying to listen," Riffy snipped back. He knew it wouldn't be a good idea to mess with Marvel De Lordy, of all people. He was an aristocrat, a cousin to the Furters themselves, and his father was a powerful lord. This was the biggest school in the city, perhaps the best public school, but Riffy had no idea as to why the fat bastard would be here instead of at some fancy private school.

"I think she's really pretty," De Lordy said, his slimy voice crawling under Riffy's skin. "Probably the prettiest girl in the school. Wanna give her this note for me?"

The note was suddenly on Riffy's desk, and he looked down at it and felt revulsion over what was written.

 _Will you marry me someday? Circle one._

 _Yes Definitely yes_

Riffy crumpled up the note, turned, and threw it right back in De Lordy's stupid face.

Immediately, De Lordy stood up. "Teacher, teacher!" he called, in a mock hurt voice. "Riff Raff Vitus threw a paper ball at me!"

"Vitus!" the teacher gave him a stern look and called him forward. "In the corner. Twenty minute detention after school."

 _At least in the corner,_ Riffy thought as the other kids giggled at him, _I can listen in peace._

* * *

When Riffy finally got out of detention, he found Magenta sitting at her usual spot near the playground swings, biting her fingernails and looking around nervously.

"Riffy!" she screeched when she finally saw him, getting up and practically falling into his arms. "I thought you got kidnapped, I thought you weren't going to come today!"

"Nonsense," Riffy said, squeezing her back. "I always come back for you. I just got a little held up, is all."

On their walk to the park, Magenta talked endlessly about her day at school.

". . . . and I got to learn how to read big words like 'presumptuous' and 'contagious,' and I learned about multiplication, like if you times two and three together it makes six. Did you know that? I didn't. And we're going to learn the Time Warp tomorrow!" As they reached the park's edge, she began to bounce in excitement.

"They still haven't taught you the Time Warp?" Riffy said, turning to her in surprise. "That was one of the first things they taught me when I started school."

"No, but I get to learn tomorrow! I've always wanted to learn the Time Warp." Magenta said.

"Why tomorrow? Why not today?" Riffy dropped his book bag in the grass and motioned for her to do the same. "We're gonna Time Warp, right here, right now."

"Really!?" Her entire face got flushed with excitement. "Yes! Teach me!"

Riff Raff grinned at her and said, "It's just a jump to the left. . . ."

Together, the two children hopped to their left.

"And then a step to the right!" He watched with a growing sense of glee as his sister took a powerful stomp to her right.

"Put your hands on your hips, you bring your knees in tight!"

With several loud giggles, Magenta obeyed.

"But it's the pelvic thrust," Riffy pushed his hips forward. "that really drives you insane!"

"Again! Again!" Magenta was practically vibrating with giddiness. "Let's do the Time Warp again!"

So they did. They did the Time Warp until they were both red-faced and laughing with joy, Magenta happy that she was now a day ahead of her classmates, in terms of Time Warping.

"What are you kids doing, eh?"

They stopped to see their father, wearing casual but nice clothing and carrying a bag of candy, making his way toward them. "Would you like a jelly baby?" he said, holding out the bag.

With caution, the two children reached out and each took a small jelly baby. Their father was quiet as they chewed their candy, before he motioned for them to follow him. They did, and Magenta slipped her hand into Riffy's. Without knowing why, he felt himself blush.

"I didn't know if you two knew this," he said, "but it's Children's Day here in Aldous. And, well. . . ." when he stopped, they saw it.

Bouncy houses. An open pool. Game booths. Free balloons. Loud music. Other kids everywhere. Parents looking disgruntled.

The Children's Day celebration.

In truth, Riffy and Magenta had indeed forgotten it was Children's Day, because their father had never taken them to celebrate it before. It was always a passing thing that they heard about at school, but never participated in. Riffy had tried to take Magenta more than once, but the admission booth wouldn't let them in without an adult. Last year, Magenta had threatened that if the admission people wouldn't let them in she'd cook their liver with fava beans and a Chianti.

But Father took them in today. And though he didn't say much to them and mostly let them run off by themselves, he didn't yell at them or snap at them once, only occasionally calling to them to let them know how many more hours they had.

Riffy and Magenta didn't mind; they were just happy to play. The first thing they did was run to a bouncy house, where Magenta tried to do the Time Warp while she was jumping and ended up on her bum more than once. Then they played the games at the booth; Riffy lost three out of the five games he played, but managed to win Magenta two new toys: a giant stuffed dog and toy spaceship. Magenta, by contrast, won all four of the games she played, though Riffy wouldn't let her give any of the things she won to him. Soon they were in the grass, their new toys surrounding them and a free balloon tied to Magenta's wrist. They had lost Father in the crowd, but it didn't matter; they were on their backs and enjoying the moonlight, giggling about how Riffy had tried to throw a softball at a target at one of the game stations, but had missed and hit an employee.

"I gotta go to the bathroom," he said after some time. "Stay here, okay?"

"Okay," Magenta said, snuggling up to her new stuffed dog and closing her eyes.

He was quick about the restroom, but not quick enough, it seemed. When he came back out, the first thing he saw was Marvel De Lordy, walking away from his little sister, with her sitting up and having a rather confused look on her face.

Riffy almost sprinted to her, knocking away a few toys piled around them as he got on his knees in front of her. "Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did he do something to you? What did he want?"

Magenta waved her little hand and said, "I'm not hurt. But he gave me something."

When she held out the piece of paper, he knew before looking at it that it was the note from earlier. The one asking her to marry De Lordy.

"I don't know why he gave me this," Magenta said, the confusion bleeding through her voice. "He said. . . . he said that when I said yes, he could take me home and give me a happy life. He said that I'd get new clothes and all the toys I could think of and that he could even get his servants to fix my hair and make it straight. . . ." she ran a few fingers through her red curls. "What's wrong with my hair the way it is?"

"Nothing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your hair," Riffy said fiercely. "And he's lying, he can't take you away from me. . . ."

In truth, De Lordy wasn't lying. Because he was a Lord's son by blood, if he had the consent of both Magenta and her legal guardian, he could take her to live alongside him until she was old enough to marry him. And this rule applied no matter how old Magenta was now. The thought of his precious sister, his angel, being taken away to live with De Lordy, of all people, to know that one day he might have her hand in marriage. . . . the thought was so disgusting it almost made him light headed.

"You. . . ." he said. "You don't want to. . . . do you?"

Magenta scoffed. "Of course not! De Lordy is the biggest asshole ever, I've seen how he treats you! He can go fuck himself." And with that she crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. Riffy felt himself almost drown in the relief that followed.

"Don't swear," he told her, his hand shaking as he went to wiggle his finger at her. "It's not appropriate for a child."

She giggled out a "sorry" before curling up next to him. "I wanna marry you instead," she said.

This caught him off guard enough to make him choke on his own spittle for a second. "Me?" he said. "You can't marry me, silly, sisters don't marry their brothers."

"I'm going to marry mine. So, yes, they do," she said with such certainty he almost didn't want to challenge her.

"Whether we get married or not," he said, deciding to humor her for just a moment, "you'll always be my Genta."

"You're always my Riffy."

They were silent for a moment before Magenta said, "Do you think Father will be like this all the time?"

Riffy wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell her that Father had changed, and that this new event of taking them to the Children's Day celebration had marked a new path for their father, a path of kindness and care.

But, despite being only ten years old, he knew enough about people to know that that probably wasn't true. So he told her, "I don't know, Genta. He might, he might not. But," he turned to look her right in the eyes. "I can tell you that, if he does or doesn't, either way I'll always be here to look after you. Okay?"

She gave him an oddly intense look, for a seven-year-old. And then she said, quietly, "Okay."


	4. I Saw the Light

I don't own RHPS, bla bla bla.

Trigger warning in this chapter for child abuse.

* * *

 **Chapter 4: I Saw the Light**

 _Magenta laughed from her place on the bed. "I still can't believe you stole fancy restaurant pancakes for me."_

 _"Pancakes, eggs, and bacon," Riff Raff corrected. "And if I remember correctly, we kept that plate and fork."_

 _"What a gentleman you are, stealing your sister food," Magenta teased. Sienna, who was lying between them on the bed, stirred a bit to grasp at her mother's finger._

 _"It's a shame that that was the first and last time Father did something like that for us," Riff Raff said, reaching out to stroke Sienna's cheek. "If anything, I think he got even more violent and angry after that day."_

 _"He did. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised at myself for forgetting that day," Magenta said, rubbing the back of Sienna's hand with her thumb. "It was rather important. The only time Father was ever nice. The day I met that - " she shuddered, " - repulsive excuse for a man, Marvel De Lordy. The last day I was really happy for a long time." After a pause, she looked at him, and leaned over to kiss him. He closed his eyes and kissed her back, wanting to sink into her arms and be there forever, but there happened to be a baby between them._

 _"It was also," Magenta said, when she pulled away from him, "the day I started to fall in love with you."_

 _"Really? When you were seven?" Riff Raff said. "I can't pinpoint the day I started to love you, to be honest. It just sort of. . . ." he shrugged. "Happened, I guess."_

 _"I didn't really realize what I was feeling was love until about four years later," Magenta said, getting off of the bed and picking up Sienna to get her dressed. "I remember the exact day, too. It was fairly shitty, but most of my days were, so my sudden realization is the only thing that made this day stand out. . . ."_

* * *

She was so used to the whispers that followed her everywhere that she didn't even question what they were saying anymore.

Kids stared at her and pointed, and muttered under their breaths about how she was one to watch out for. She wasn't someone you wanted to mess with. She was frightening.

Magenta walked the halls of her school with a certain air of toughness. It wasn't a loud toughness that called for anyone to challenge her to a fight, but a quiet sort of toughness, the type that wasn't asking for a fight, but wouldn't back down if called into one. She was, at eleven, a far cry from the little girl who wore a stained pink romper and giggled at the Time Warp. This Magenta wore a ragged black and red dress with heavy boots and makeup that surprisingly looked professional, despite her being so young. Her pretty green eyes lacked any innocence at all, and her loose red hair hung around her face almost as if to hide it from passing people. She would've been lovely, if she didn't have such a permanent scowl.

A few of the braver kids gave her disgusted looks, but when they caught sight of those vicious eyes they shrank back. _Good,_ she thought. It wasn't like she'd done anything to bother them. Just the fact that she was there, that she was from the inner city, and that she carried such an aura of intimidation were enough for those kids.

And she might've punched out a few boys who gave her a hard time. That was also a probable reason as to why she was so disliked.

She was exiting the school, ready for the day to be over and done with, when she heard him.

"Hey, Magenta."

Marvel De Lordy's slimy voice came to her from the parking lot. She almost cringed visibly when she saw him, making his way over to her. His tuxedo was so stiff he walked like a penguin, and his face red and sweaty with beady little blue eyes. Not like her brother's pleasant icy blue; De Lordy's eyes were the shade of blue a person's face turned after they'd been strangled.

"De Lordy," she said, making sure her voice was dripping with disgust. She kept walking out through the parking lot, making her way to the sidewalk.

"Where are you going? I've got something for you," he said, and suddenly he was blocking her way. She almost growled at him.

Magenta could feel the stares of the other kids from behind them, at the school. Watching to see what she would do.

"I'm not interested," she said, before turning to walk around him.

"You will be," De Lordy said. He pulled out a small, black, silk box from his pocket. Magenta barely glanced at it.

"I don't want anything from _you,_ " she said, this time looking him straight in the eye to make sure he got the point. He didn't. Or he did, but didn't give a shit.

"Here," he said, and he opened the small black box and pushed it into her hand. Magenta recoiled sharply at the feeling of his fingers on hers, but she saw what was in the box: a small red rose necklace. A symbol of love.

"I was hoping maybe today would be the day you'd change your mind," De Lordy said. "We don't have to talk about marriage right away, my little rose. We could just start off as _special friends_." He grinned at her, his silver teeth visibly having pieces of food sticking between them. "What do you say?"

Almost the whole school was outside now, behind them, listening in sharply and keeping their eyes trained on her.

"I say that's fucking disgusting." She closed the box and threw it right into his face.

It bounced off of his nose, and he hopped back in surprise. The box landed on the ground with a soft thud. He stared at her briefly, his red face turning almost purple with anger.

Magenta, however, met his gaze unwaveringly. "Stop following me and stop trying to get me to be your ' _special friend.'_ " Her eyes were like knives. "I've made it clear a million times that I'm not interested. Not to mention you're just plain repulsive to me."

And with that she turned and walked to the sidewalk, with her head high and her shoulders back, hearing the gasps and murmurs of disapproval from the other kids around her. De Lordy coming from royal blood, most of the young Transylvanians would give their right arms to be wanted in marriage by him. Especially the ones who were as financially poor as Magenta. Yet, it just happened that De Lordy had set his sickly blue eyes on the one person who wasn't willing to put up with him for anything.

"You'll be mine eventually, Magenta!" he called back, scrambling to pick up his gift off the pavement. "I've wanted you since I was ten, and I'm not going to give up on you any time soon, my little rose!"

Without even giving him the privilege of a glance, Magenta said, "I'm not your little anything. Especially not your wife."

She continued this haughty walk until the school - and De Lordy - were out of sight. Then she let out a slightly shaking breath. De Lordy was only getting more persistent with time. Now that he was going to the upper school, where teenagers ages thirteen to nineteen attended, she thought she'd be rid of him. Not so; he was coming back to the lower school purely to harass her. According to Riff Raff, De Lordy was pestering him at the upper school as well, asking him all sorts of questions about what sorts of things Magenta liked and what he could do to win her over. It was getting so bad that her normally nonviolent brother seemed like he was ready to have a go at De Lordy himself.

When she finally reached the apartment after forty minutes of walking, she practically crashed onto the couch. Father and Riff Raff weren't here yet; father because he had work and Riff because he had an after-school chemistry club thing. Almost out of paranoia, she got up and locked the door. No need to have De Lordy trying to barge in on her.

She did her homework at the table and then went to her and Riff Raff's shared room to take a nap. After climbing to the top bunk of their bunk bed - yes, they had a proper bunk bed now, Father had gotten them one after they'd obviously gotten too big for the crib and cot - she curled under their blankets and closed her eyes, falling into sleep within ten minutes.

She was awoken by the yelling.

It wasn't unusual for yelling to occur in her house, so at first she tried to ignore it. It was Riff Raff and Father, arguing again about something trivial that Father had started. Maybe he'd made another disparaging comment on Riff Raff's career choice as a scientist, or asked Riff Raff why he wouldn't cut his waist-length blonde hair, or said something to the effect of "This is exactly why your mother left us!" Whatever the case, it was most definitely Father that started it. Riff Raff was too non-confrontational to begin a battle himself.

Then she heard her brother let out a yelp of pain.

Magenta bolted up and practically jumped off the top bunk, before running to the bedroom door to take a peek outside. Father was standing there, his hands bunched into fists, breathing heavily. Riff Raff, fourteen years old and no where near as tall or as burly as Father, was backing away a bit, his hand on his cheek, a small amount of blood on his lip. Magenta's eyes widened.

Before she could open the door to come out, Father lunged at Riff Raff and knocked him to the ground, and she could hear Father's fist collide with her brother's face, could hear him screaming, " _This will teach you to talk back to me, don't you_ dare _fucking tell me how to live my life, you little son of a bitch -_ "

Magenta was out the door before she knew what she was doing. Riff Raff was on the living room floor, on his back, with Father straddling his hips and holding his head with one hand, hitting it repeatedly with the other. Riff Raff's hands were gripping Father's wrist, his voice making harsh little squeaks with every hit.

She was soon at them without thinking about it, and she aimed a hard kick to Father's side. He crumpled a bit and let go of Riff Raff's head, long enough for Riff Raff to screech, "No, Genta, stay out of it, it's fine -"

But Magenta kicked again, this time at Father's hip, and he was now aware enough to catch her by the ankle. "You little bitch!" He yelled. "You little slut, I ought to kick your cum-bucket ass, bitch -"

With that he yanked her downward. Her knee collapsed below of her and she felt Father grab her by the front of her dress and pin her down, moving one of his knees so that it was on Riff Raff's chest. "You want a fucking taste of this, huh, slut? You want to get hit, too?" He backhanded her sharply across the face; the pain was sudden and strong. "See what you made me do there, bitch?"

She almost didn't notice that Riff Raff rolled his way free from under Father's legs and stood up. She did notice completely when Father put his hand to her neck, pushing down on it so that no air could get into her lungs. She tried to breathe in through her mouth, but succeeded in only a high whistling sound from the back of her throat.

" _Do you feel that, Lavender? Do you fucking feel what I'm doing to you?_ " Father's eyes were almost mad with anger. " _You don't like it, do you bitch, well you fucking deserve it, with all the shit you gave me -_ "

 _Clang._

Father was knocked to the side, his hand pulled from Magenta's neck, and she started to gasp like a fish out of water. Riff Raff was standing over them, a heavy saucepan in his hands, and when Father moved to get up, Riff Raff hit him over the head again. This time, Father lay still, on his side next to Magenta with one arm and one leg splayed out over her.

Riff Raff didn't talk or make any motion to check that Father was okay; he knelt down and scooped Magenta up as if she were a doll, carrying her bridal-style to the door, kicking it down before making a break for outside. Out the corner of her eye, Magenta could see Father begin to stir.

* * *

They were mostly silent as they sat on the beach.

It was twilight, with the pale Transylvanian sun just rising in the east, the west still dark. Magenta sat cross legged, drawing stick figures in the white sand with her finger. Her cheek and neck were red, a small violet bruise beginning to bloom on her cheekbone. Riff Raff's face was all sorts of messed up; bruises covered his chin to his eye, blood covered his the front of his periwinkle shirt, and they'd had to reset his swollen nose when they'd finally stopped running and gotten to the ocean shore. The beach was only a short twenty minute walk from their apartment complex, but Riff Raff had run as fast as he could with Magenta in his arms for the first five, before she'd made him put her down so that she could run with him.

He leaned back on his hands, watching the distant sunrise with a pensive look on his battered face. "Do you think," he asked after a while, "that Father will try to attack us again when we come home?"

"I almost hope he does," Magenta said. "I want to have another shot at him."

"No more fighting, Genta. He almost strangled you."

"Maybe he should finish what he started."

"Magenta," Riff Raff turned to look at her. One of his eyes was swollen shut, but the other could still pierce her like a knife. "Don't ever say something like that. You could've been killed -"

"Maybe that'd be preferable to this miserable life," she said, laying down on her back and not looking at him.

Riff Raff paused. "Did something happen at school today?"

"Nothing unusual. The kids are all scared of me, my old best friends call me shit like 'slut' and 'cow,' and Marvel De Lordy showed up to bug me again about being his stupid girlfriend. Everything's great." She bunched her hands into fists and pointedly continued to not look at her brother.

Riff Raff was quiet again, before asking, "How long has this been going on?"

"Since I was maybe eight," Magenta said. "When Father started to hit me, too."

The silence was back. Magenta felt Riff Raff lay down on his side facing her, felt his hand gently rest itself on her shoulder. An involuntary blush creeped its way up her neck.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because you have school and your chemistry club and avoiding Father to think about. You're working to be a scientist. I don't know what I want to be yet. I'm just. . . . I don't want to bother you more than I have to."

At this Riff Raff sat up, and then got onto his feet. He reached a hand down to her; she looked up at him quizzically.

"I always have time for you, Genta. Don't ever think that I don't or won't want to know what's bothering you. You're my little angel." Despite the horrific state of his face, his smile managed to make her heart jump a bit.

She took his hand and let him pull her up. "You know what we can do that always makes you happy?" Riff Raff said.

Magenta groaned. "Not the Time Warp again. . . ."

"You love the Time Warp!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to do it. . . ."

"Come on now." Riff Raff hopped to his left. "It's just a jump to the left."

For a few moments Magenta stayed silent in protest. Then she gave into his pout and said, "And then a step to the right."

"Put your hands on your hips!" Riff Raff grabbed his sister's wrists and placed them on her hips. "You bring your knees in tight!"

And then Magenta couldn't help it; she sang along with Riff Raff, loudly as they did the rest of the dance together: "But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane! Let's do the Time Warp again!"

And they did. They kept doing the Time Warp until Magenta had to stop, her breathing restricted by her slightly swollen throat. Riff Raff laughed a bit and hugged her to him. "You know, you're very good at singing and dancing," he said. "You say you don't know what you want to be; I say you should be a singer or a dancer."

"I couldn't do that," Magenta said against his shoulder. "I'm not good enough to do that."

"Well, I say you are," Riff Raff responded. And Magenta had to admit, when the idea came from her brother's mouth, she kind of liked it.

She wasn't sure what made her realize it, there, in that moment. She was just a little girl holding onto her big brother one second, and the next she wanted to hold him like this forever, lock him in her arms and never let go. He was everything; her protector, her best friend, her confident. . . . and now she wanted him to be something more, as well. What she wanted him to be, her young mind couldn't fathom, but she knew enough to realize what it was she was feeling.

Love. She was a young girl in love with her older brother.

And that, she realized, was deeply and horribly wrong.

She pulled away from him so suddenly he looked confused for a moment. But she brushed it off with, "I think we should go home now. It's getting light out."

He nodded once before saying, "I want to show you something first, okay?"

She gave him a questioning look, but he just held out his forearms so that his palms were parallel to the ground. He motioned his head for her to do the same, and she did. Gently, he pushed his arms forward so that their fingertips were touching, then their palms, then their entire forearms. And then their arms were raised upwards, nothing but their elbows touching, until he carefully brought their hands back down again.

"What. . . . what was that?" Magenta said, not sure how to feel about this weirdly intimate-feeling action.

"That's called the Brachorea," Riff Raff explained. "It's a very old action, but two people do it as a way to show that they are more important to each other than anybody else. You are what's most important to me, Genta. Not Father, not any school clubs. You. Okay? Do you understand that?"

For a moment, Magenta's little heart sped up, thinking that Riff Raff meant this romantically. But a quick look at his innocent face told her that he didn't. She was his precious little sister. Nothing more.

"Okay," she said. In that second, she almost cried. There were almost a bit of tears in her eyes. But Magenta hadn't cried since she was five years old and her favorite toy gong had been broken. She wasn't about to do it now, and certainly not over some boy.

Even if that boy was her beloved brother. . . .

Riff Raff grinned at her as he turned to walk home. "You're a real dork, you know that?"

"How am I a dork?"

"I dunno. You just are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

This continued all the way back to the apartment complex. They stopped in front of the door, and Riff Raff took her hand, which made her heart beat just that much faster. "We'll be okay," he whispered to her. "He's sure to have calmed down by now."

They cracked open the door. Father was on the couch in the living room, the couch that covered the old bloodstain from the day Magenta was born. His eyes fell on them, hard, but he said nothing.

Riff Raff took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak. "Father, I -"

"Riff," Magenta interrupted, her eyes cast down the hallway and toward the slightly cracked door of their shared bedroom. "Riff, there's a light in there."

"A what?" Riff Raff turned to her questioningly.

"The light, I saw the light. . . ." Magenta let go of her brothers hand and rushed to the bedroom. She tore the door open to find a large bonfire smack in the middle of the room.

Everything they owned was in it; books, old toys, their blankets, their pillows, their pictures. Magenta's eyes widened as she screamed, "Fire! We have to put out the fire!"

Getting over his initial confusion, Riff Raff yelled and went to the phone to call the fire department. Magenta got the largest bowl she could find in the kitchen, filling it with water and running to dump it onto the fire.

From his place on the couch, their father leaned back and shut his eyes, muttering, "That's what you cunts get for crossing me."


	5. Yesterday

Aaand here is chapter five! Be warned, my fellow Riffgenta fans: this is the beginning of some serious strife between the siblings. Also a fair warning: it might be a bit hard to like Magenta for the next few chapters. She'll get better, I promise.

Trigger warning for self harm. Nothing seriously graphic, but just in case.

Rocky Horror is owned by a person who is not me.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Yesterday**

 _The siblings were walking out the front door of their shop as Magenta finished this side of the story. They lived in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment right above a vehicle repair business that Riff Raff ran; today was the one day of the week the shop was closed, the family having time to spend together. Magenta wasn't currently working, instead taking care of Sienna full time, but she had plans to become a dance instructor after Sienna started school in a few years._

 _A normal life. Just a regular looking family. No one in the town knew of their origins, of their blood relation, of their history with the royal family, or of their especially secret status as murderers. When asked by the other townspeople where they were from or why they had moved here, Magenta would say, "It's a very long story," while Riff Raff would give them a lazy smile and joke, "We came from the Milky Way galaxy."_

 _New last names. A new legal status as a married couple. A daughter. A clean slate. Yes, Carmilla Furter had certainly repaid them well for their favor to her._

 _As Magenta strapped Sienna into her carseat at the back of their hovercraft, Riff Raff said, in a low voice so that no one passing by might be able to hear him, "The fact that our father beat us and almost burnt down our room, and that it isn't important enough for you to remember. . . . That it was realizing you loved me that made you remember that day. . . . That's an awfully bad thing, if you ask me. That he treated us so horribly so regularly that the extreme things he did started to become forgettable."_

" _I know." Magenta moved away from the baby and slid into the driver's seat. "I suppose that day. . . . It was also a bit of a turning point for me."_

 _Riff Raff knew instantly what she meant. He got into the passenger's seat next to her and looked at her closely. "It was the day you started to pull away from me."_

" _Yes." She started the hovercraft. It rose around twenty feet into the air before taking off. "I thought it was all wrong. I'd heard stories of incestuous couples being tormented and killed, and I thought that it was a sick and demented thing that only perverts did. Do you remember the killings of Elisheba and Channah Sirius?"_

" _The sisters who were caught having sex by their neighbors?"_

" _Yes. Incest is technically legal all across Transsexual so long as it's between consenting adults, which the Sirius sisters were. But their mother was so disgusted with them that she came to their shared house and shot them both dead with an antimatter laser. That happened in our hometown, not very far from where we lived and not long before I realized my feelings. That story. . . ." Magenta's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "When I realized that I loved you romantically, that story wouldn't stop coming to my mind. I kept thinking, 'If I keep this fuckery up, I'm gonna get killed, too.' I thought I was as disgusting as shit on a dumpster. I thought you would hate me if you ever found out."_

" _I could never hate you. I loved you, too."_

 _Magenta snorted. "Well, I know that now. But I didn't back then. So I started to distance myself from you, tried to turn everything you ever did into something stupid or offensive. I tried to make myself dislike you, so I wouldn't be able to love you."_

" _How did that work out for you?"_

 _Magenta grinned a bit and took one hand off the steering wheel to place it on his. "Not very well."_

 _Riff Raff pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. Then he smiled mischievously. "I think it was about that time that I met Pearl, wasn't it?"_

 _Magenta groaned loudly as she stopped the hovercraft for oncoming traffic. "Fuck, I don't like remembering Pearl."_

" _She caused quite a lot of confusion for us both, didn't she?"_

* * *

Riff Raff was pacing the apartment, biting his nails bloody with worry. Father was drunk and passed out in his bedroom, having come home too wasted to try to pick a fight with Riff Raff. Magenta, however, still hadn't come home, and it was late in the daytime with school the next night.

 _She's probably out with friends and forgot to tell me, or she got held up on her way home,_ Riff Raff thought, tugging a bit on his long blonde hair. _Or she could be kidnapped, or in a ditch somewhere, or dead. . . ._

He pushed those thoughts out of his mind and went to the door. He was going to go out and look for her again; he'd already searched around three times, checking the rest of the inner city, the schools, the park, the beach, restaurants, hangouts for the local teenagers. . . . he grabbed a picture of her off the wall. This time he would ask around if anyone had seen her.

Riff Raff was about to open the door when it crashed open itself. Magenta stood there, makeup smudged and a cigarette dangling from her lips. She didn't acknowledge him, and instead made her way down the hall to their room, her clothes looking visibly crooked and a few bruises on her arms.

"Magenta?" Riff Raff said, bewildered. When she didn't respond, he rushed after her. "Magenta!" He said again, reaching out and gripping her arm; she hissed in pain as he hit a few bruises and yanked her arm away.

It was then that she finally turned to look at him, her eyes flashing angrily. She took the cigarette out from between her lips and said, "What? What is it? What do you want?"

"What do I want - ?" Riff Raff said, bewildered. Then he felt a twinge of anger mixed in with the flood of relief that she was here, unharmed. "I _want_ to see that you're okay! Where were you? Why didn't you come home until now? Why didn't you call, or stop by first, or _something_ to let me know -"

"It's really none of your damn business," Magenta said. "But if you need to know, I was at a friend's house."

"A 'friend?'" Riff Raff said. "What friend?"

She took a long drag off of her cigarette and blew a few smoke rings. "Barnabus Twilus."

Riff Raff's head started to whirl faster. "Barnabus Twilus? He's nineteen! He's five years older than you!"

"And?" Magenta paused for a moment, looking like she was considering telling him something. And then she said it: "We might've fucked a lot, and it might've been rough. Not," she inhaled more smoke, "that that's of any concern to you."

"You - he - is that how - ?" Riff Raff's eyes went immediately to the bruises on Magenta's arms. Dark bruises. Savage marks, defiling his beautiful sister. The thought of her having sex wasn't what bothered him; the thought of her doing it with an older guy, one that he knew, one that went to his school, one that physically had been harsh with her. . . .

"Very rough." With this last statement, Magenta put out her cigarette on an ashtray on the coffee table. She moved away from him, to their bedroom, and said, "Now if you don't mind, I'm very sore and I need some rest."

She shut the door tightly behind her.

Riff Raff was left standing there, his hands trembling slightly, angry tears welling in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks. He wanted to yell at her, wanted to scream and kick the bedroom door down and shake her senseless, but he turned and stepped out the front door to their apartment instead. Standing in the parking lot, he put his hands on both sides of his head and cried.

* * *

As soon as she heard Riff Raff leave the apartment, Magenta grabbed a towel and scrambled to the bathroom for a shower. Once she was in she scrubbed herself from head to toe, trying to ease the feeling that she was covered in filth. The bruises were on her chest, her arms, her legs, her hips. She'd asked Barnabus to be rough when he fucked her, and he'd certainly delivered. But he'd given her no sort of aftercare; once he was done, he'd simply lit up a cigarette and asked her when she was planning on leaving. And he hadn't even _tried_ to make her come.

It didn't matter, she supposed. She'd just done it for the sole purpose of trying to get her latest fantasies about Riff Raff out of her head. Not that it had worked; when Barnabus had kissed her, she thought of Riff Raff. When he'd entered her body, she pretended it was Riff Raff doing it. When he'd backhanded her and elbowed her and kneed her to give her the bruises she asked for, she pictured Riff Raff, spanking her or whipping her or biting her neck instead.

And during the few moments with Barnabus where she felt any physical pleasure at all, it was Riff Raff's name that almost came out of her mouth.

It was like that with everyone she'd slept with. She'd lost her virginity to some biker girl in her class a year ago, when she'd gotten so sick of touching herself to thoughts of her brother that she was almost ready to have a breakdown. A few months later, a threesome with two boys a few classes above her had only spawned a new fantasy of two Riff Raffs fucking her at once. An adult woman she'd slept with in the back of an abandoned hovercraft a week ago had asked who "Riff Raff" was, and Magenta realized she'd moaned his name during her orgasm.

Every person she kissed was her brother. Every dream at night was her brother. Every stray thought, every longing feeling, every desire for someone to talk to, every stab at her heart. . . . her brother, her brother, her brother.

Her _brother._

She was sick. She was nasty and perverted. She was worse than the lowest of parasites that crawled along Transsexual. Incest was legal, true, but it was so strongly looked down upon that it might as well be not be. Everyone still had the same general thoughts on it: that's disgusting, who the hell would do that, why would anyone want to fuck a close relative? What kind of lunatic would think that was okay? Just like those Sirius sisters a few years ago, they deserved what their mother did to them, fucking nasty sluts, if you can't control yourself then you should just fucking go and _die_ -

Magenta smacked herself hard across the face.

It worked, at least a little. The thoughts were temporarily knocked away from her head. They'd be back, they always came back, but for now her mind was clear. She could focus on getting out of the shower and brushing her teeth.

Now that she thought about it though, she wasn't really sure why she'd told Riff Raff about her day with Barnabus. It wasn't that she wanted to hurt him. . . . or was it? _He'll find out about me eventually,_ Magenta thought to herself. _He'll hate me anyway when he does. Might as well make him hate me now, so it'll sting less when he realizes._

Still, the thought of her beautiful big brother recoiling in disgust from her, telling her she was unnatural, unhealthy, mentally ill. . . .The thought of seeing revulsion in his lovely blue eyes when he looked at her. . . . it was enough to cause a small lump to form in her throat, before she hit herself again to make the thoughts and the desire to cry go away. Her cheek ached and reddened a bit, but it worked.

* * *

School the next night was a rather boring affair.

Riff Raff had awoken to find that Magenta had taken off without him, so he walked alone to the upper school that they both attended. Despite most of his thoughts straying toward his sister, he still managed to perform excellently in his chemistry and physics classes, and very well in calculus, though his usual good performance was lacking in all the other subjects he took. He caught glances of Magenta in the hallways, but she kept her eyes firmly off of him.

He longed to know what was wrong. Why she was acting out so much lately. Why she suddenly seemed so desperate to hurt him. . . .

In his chemistry club after school, he was visibly distracted. A few acquaintances - Riff Raff wasn't close enough to any of them to call them friends - asked him if he was feeling alright. He lied and said he was just tired, a classic excuse that no one would question. He thought they'd simply leave him be and let him leave the classroom when the meeting was adjourned, but the supervisor called him back.

He sat down in front of their desk and watched as they flipped through a folder. Professor Starlite was his current chemistry teacher, as well as his past biology and anatomy teacher. Starlite was known for being one of the strictest teachers in all the school, as well as the hardest to impress, yet Riff Raff could and did consistently earn high marks from them.

"You wanted to see me, Professor?" he asked.

"Yes, I did," Starlite said, and they pulled a small brochure out of their folder. When they handed it to Riff Raff, his eyes widened at name on the cover: _Strangelove University._ It was perhaps one of the best science-based colleges in all of the country of Orwell, with hundreds of alumni to its name. . . . and it was also so expensive Riff Raff had never dreamed of going there.

"Professor, why are you -"

"I know," Starlite said, "that it would cost a lot and is prestigious. But I believe you have potential, Vitus. And I believe that this school can help you make your way into being an astrobiologist. That's what you want to do, right?"

"I. . . . yes, Professor," Riff Raff said. "I want. . . . I want to study life on other planets."

"Then this school would be the best college option for you," Starlite said, smirking a bit. "Did you know that that college is where Prince Frank N. Furter will be attending in a year?"

"No, I didn't," Riff Raff said. He never paid much mind to what the royal family did.

Starlite nodded. "You're only seventeen, and still have two more years until you graduate. But they accept students who are seventeen and up, so long as those students are passing all their upper school classes." They nodded their head to where someone in the room was standing, someone Riff Raff hadn't noticed before. "It's where my daughter will be applying as well."

The girl standing there in the corner resembled Starlite, somewhat; same long, wavy brown hair, same hazel eyes, same glasses. But this girl lacked the beard that Starlite possessed, and her face was rounder, softer. She offered up a shy smile to Riff Raff, and he almost thought he saw a blush color those tan cheeks. "Hi," she said. "I'm Pearl Starlite."

"Riff Raff Vitus," he nodded at her, and then turned his attention back to her parent. "I do have a reservation about this, Professor," he took a deep breath. "My sister, Magenta. She. . . . she doesn't really have anyone other than me, because our Father is. . . . distant. I wouldn't want her to be alone, while I'd be so far away. . . ."

He didn't even know why he was voicing any concern for Magenta, the way she'd been treating him lately. He supposed it was an instinctual big brother thing, but something nagged inside him that that was not the case. He brushed it off.

"How old is your sister, Vitus?"

"She's fourteen."

"Then Magenta would be at least sixteen by the time you left," Starlite said. "That's old enough for her to know how to occupy herself."

Riff Raff was quiet for a moment before saying, "I suppose you're right, Professor."

Starlite nodded. "I often am. That's all I wanted to talk to you about, Vitus. You are dismissed."

Riff Raff murmured his thanks and left the room, only to be caught shortly afterwards as he was about to exit the school.

"Wait! Vitus!" He turned and saw Pearl Starlite running toward him, a bit of a wheeze going in her chest as she stopped. "I wanted. . . . to ask you. . . . something. . . ."

Riff Raff waited as she dug an inhaler out of her book bag and took a long dose of it. When she was done, her face was still red, but it occurred to him later that this was not because of the running.

"I wanted to ask you something," she said again, sounding for all the world like she was using all her courage just to say these few words.

"Yes?"

"I. . . ." her face flushed even more and she looked away from him. "I don't know if you've noticed me at all, but I've been in the chemistry club for a few years, and I'm just a year below you. . . . I've been wanting to ask you for a few months now, but I didn't think. . . . I didn't know if you even knew my name. . . ."

 _Out with it,_ Riff Raff thought, close to getting visibly impatient.

"I was wondering. . . . there's a big biology exhibit opening at the local museum tomorrow morning. . . . would you maybe want to go with me?"

The question caught him entirely by surprise and it suddenly hit him why she was acting so nervous.

Here was a young girl, no older than sixteen, looking at him like he was a superhero of some sort and had likely been looking at him like this for a while now. Her face was flushed from excitement and nervousness, her eyes wide and innocent behind her glasses, her hand twirling a strand of her hair. Nothing at all like Magenta, who, if she had a crush on someone, would most certainly be bold and shameless about it, marching right up to whatever person it was and declaring that she wanted a date and maybe a nice fuck afterwards and then some cuddling and a good dinner. . . .

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach, but he was a bit shocked by the words that came out of his mouth. "Sure, I'll take you."

Pearl was positively shining with joy upon hearing this. "That's so great! Here, I'll give you my address. . . ."

And the next thing Riff Raff knew, he had Pearl Starlite's address written on his hand, and was walking home feeling so light-headed he almost fainted a few times.

* * *

Magenta didn't notice anything unusual in the house until she saw Riff Raff getting all dressed up.

Well, not really dressed up, but certainly dressed nicer than usual. His hair was in a long braid, he had a full face of makeup done, he was wearing a simple black dress with his nicest fishnets and a pair of small heels. He was staring in the mirror of the bathroom, applying one last coat of mascara, straightening the hem of his dress, and almost didn't notice when Magenta stopped in front of the open door to stare at him.

"Can I help you with something?" he said, checking himself in the mirror for any flaws.

"Yes. You can tell me what it is that you're doing."

He paused, before turning to look her directly in the eye and say, "I'm getting ready for a date."

Magenta's stomach felt as if it had dropped right out of her body.

"A. . . . date?"

"Yes."

"What are you going on a date for?"

"To get to know a girl who seems to have a crush on me." He turned and walked right past her, moving to their room to pick up a small satchel and throw a few things into it. She followed him.

"Who is she?" Magenta said. Her stomach was back, but now it was violently jumping around inside her.

"Pearl Starlite. You wouldn't know her, she's from my chemistry club."

"I'd like to meet her." _So I can feed her to the fire ants._

"Well, you're not going to tonight. I'm walking to her house, and you're not coming."

Magenta wasn't sure why this comment stung so much at first, but seconds later she realized: it was the type of comment a typical big brother would make to his typical annoying little sister. And she, for most of their lives, hadn't been a typical annoying little sister. She'd been his angel, as he called her.

 _But I've fucking ruined that, haven't I?_

She wanted to smack herself again for feeling so hurt.

Riff Raff was heading for the door now, pointedly not looking at her. "Father should be back around daylight. Don't do anything stupid and he shouldn't bother you." And then he was gone, disappeared out the door and walking away from their apartment.

Magenta felt the lump rise in the back of her throat again, but a quick strike to her own face got rid of it. She was beginning to like this, the feeling of hitting herself. The sting got rid of all her painful thoughts.

As she walked back to their room and shut the door, she noticed something. On the bottom bunk of their bunk bed, Riff Raff's school bag lay open. And sticking out was a small brochure.

She picked it up. _Strangelove University_. . . .

* * *

If Riff Raff was being honest, the date was rather boring

Not the science exhibits and the museum itself, those were outstanding. But in terms of romance, it was boring. He didn't feel a single spark of romantic affection for Pearl Starlite, despite the facts that she was cute, fun to talk to, and shared a lot of common interests with him. He'd been hoping for something special when he'd knocked on the door of her house and hopped into the passenger seat of her car. But now, as she drove him home, he knew there would never be anything special. Not with her.

But he was fairly sure she didn't feel the same. Her blush was still present throughout the whole date, she was still breathless and nervous when she spoke to him, and that adoring look was still in her eyes. He was already regretting having to break her little heart.

". . . . I had a really great time today, we should do this again sometime," she was saying. They'd pulled into his apartment complex and she was walking him to his door. Her tiny thumbs were twiddling, and she had a faint blush as she said it, looking down at her shoes.

"We should," Riff Raff agreed. _But,_ he was about to add, _I'd rather do it as just friends._

At least, that's what he was _going_ to say. Right before the door to his apartment crashed open, revealing Magenta, looking absolutely livid.

"You're leaving?" she said, and she thrust something into his face. "You're leaving for a school all the way on the other side of the country? What the fuck, Riff Raff? When the fuck were you going to tell me this?"

He blinked a few times before he registered what was happening. Her face was a deep shade of red, making her green eyes almost glow with rage. There were, to his surprise, visible veins in her temple and neck. And dangling from her fingers, right in front of him, was his brochure for Strangelove University.

Riff Raff's first reaction was to stay calm. An almost eerie calm that hardly ever came to him. "Magenta," he said. "I've been looking at a college. There's nothing wrong with that." Then he gently took a shocked-looking Pearl by the arm and pulled her toward himself. "And this is my date, Pearl. You said you wanted to meet her earlier."

Magenta's flashing eyes snapped to Pearl, who shrunk back against Riff Raff a bit, but managed a small smile. "Hello," she said. "I've heard of you -"

"Oh really? And what the hell did you hear, may I ask? Shit about how much of a right bitch I am?" Her tone was vicious, aggressive, and Pearl's smile was replaced by a look of fear.

"Magenta, that's enough," Riff Raff said. "I think you'd better go inside and wait to talk to me in there."

"Fuck no, we're going to discuss this now, Riff Raff! What the hell are you thinking, I know we were in a bad fucking place with each other yesterday but you could've at least said _something_ , you're out of your shithead mind if you think I'm going to -"

Riff Raff wasn't sure, in that moment, why he did it. When he looked back at it years later he realized that he'd done it in order to shut Magenta up. . . . and perhaps to make her jealous, as well. One thing was for sure: in his mind she had no right to be so angry at him, not when she'd been treating him so badly, so he did the one thing he thought might hurt her.

He turned Pearl to face him, said "I'll talk to you at school," and gave her a brief kiss right on the lips.

Magenta stopped talking immediately.

Riff Raff didn't even register or think about how Pearl reacted to his sudden display of affection. When he stopped, his eyes went straight to his sister. Her eyes looked ready to bulge out of her skull. Her face had gone from red to sheet white. The brochure in her hand fluttered to the ground as her fingers loosened.

And then she turned around and zipped back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

It was only now that Riff Raff turned to look at Pearl, whose face was as pink as a rose, and who was now stuttering a mixture of pleased babble for his kiss and shocked expressions for his sister's behavior. He shrugged at her and said, "Like I said, I'll talk to you at school. I'm sorry about all that. You have a good day."

He turned and picked up his brochure off the ground and entered the apartment, heading for his and Magenta's room to grab a his book bag and start on his homework.

From the locked bathroom, he thought he could hear the sound of something being slapped.


	6. Habits

~~guess who's back/back again~~

Not that anyone reading this had a long wait, ha ha. This chapter is my favorite so far; poor Magenta is about to get herself into some deep shit. Probably the most M rated chapter here so far.

Trigger warning for self harm and attempted sexual assault.

Rocky Horror, how I wish you were mine, but alas, you belong to the great Richard O'Brien.

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Habits**

 _Their trip to the grocery store was a standard affair. Riff Raff picked up some veggies, Magenta some meat, people stopped them to say how cute their infant was, someone recommended a new brand of baby food to them. When it was all said and done, Magenta was loading their hovercraft with two weeks worth of food, and Riff Raff was strapping Sienna back into her carseat. When they got back into the hovercraft, Riff Raff asked a sudden question._

 _"How long has it been since you last hit yourself?"_

 _"Three years, two months, and nineteen days," Magenta said. "That's a record, for me. Especially since those years were spent locked up on Earth with Frank N. Furter."_

 _Riff Raff was quiet for a moment as she started up the vehicle. "So, that was when you started? Around the time Pearl showed up?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Can I ask why?"_

 _"I don't exactly know why," she pulled into traffic and drove toward the bank. "Because it got my head to clear up, if only for a second, I guess. The initial effect started to wear off the more I did it, so I started hitting harder each time. Sometimes I'd use my fist. Do you remember when you thought my jaw was broken, it was so bruised up? And I didn't tell you what had happened?"_

 _"You did that to yourself?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _Riff Raff felt his hands tighten up in his lap. "I. . . . I wish I knew how to help you. But I don't know how to deal with that sort of thing. . . ."_

 _"You've helped plenty." Magenta said. "It took a long time, but I've stopped, with your help. Your support when you found out meant the world to me."_

 _She reached for his hand, and this time it was her turn to raise it to her lips and kiss his knuckles. "It was," she said, "something that I largely had to do for myself. I couldn't stop unless I wanted to. You made me want to."_

 _They lapsed into a comfortable silence, broken only by Sienna starting to cry in the backseat. "She must need a feeding again," Riff Raff said. Magenta nodded and pulled the hovercraft over, landing at a small rest stop on the ground. Soon Sienna was in her mother's arms, enjoying lunch while Riff Raff looked out the window, pensive. He said, after a while, "Do you remember the day you got kidnapped?"_

 _"I don't think I could not remember that."_

 _"How old were you. . . ?"_

 _"Sixteen. It was my birthday"_

 _"Sounds like the most memorable birthday you could have ever had."_

 _"Oh, it was. None of the amazing birthday sex we had in the years to come could change that, sorry."_

 _"Why Magenta, I'm offended!" He gave her a look of mock hurt and put his hand dramatically over his heart._

 _"Too damn bad."_

 _"Are you saying that my performance in bed isn't good enough to be remembered over a trauma?"_

 _"That's exactly what I'm saying, you prick," she teased back._

* * *

 _Happy birthday to me._

She was laying in her bed, staring at the ceiling for a good half hour after the clock struck midday. It was officially her birthday now; thirty long minutes of being sixteen.

She already hated it.

Magenta finally got up, climbing down to the floor from her top bunk. Despite it being the middle of the day, Riff Raff wasn't in his own bed. He was spending the night with his girlfriend, Pearl Starlite. Pretty, smart, and sweet as fucking pie Pearl. Over a year had passed of Riff Raff dating her, and they had both, from what she had heard, just applied to Strangelove University.

It was perhaps the worst year of Magenta's life.

She padded to the kitchen, careful not to wake Father from his drunken sleep. She opened the fridge, pulled out a bottle of old booze, and poured herself a generous amount. Taking a cigarette from the junk drawer, she sat down on the couch, lit up, and drank.

Every night, seeing her brother walk hand in hand with Pearl at school. Hearing him talk on the phone to her when he got home. Watching her kiss him goodbye and hello, watching her stupid little face blush when he touched her, seeing him give her that warm smile he used to reserve just for Magenta. . . .

And she, meanwhile, was at her most pathetic. Drinking and smoking every night. Sex with random strangers every few days, pretending each was her brother. Failing most of her classes. _Riff Raff broke me with a snap of his fingers, and he didn't even realize it,_ she thought bitterly.

She hit herself in the face so hard that the cigarette was almost knocked away from her mouth. The feel of striking herself was only thing that really kept her from breaking down completely. And oh, how she needed to break down. She wanted so badly to sob, to let the tears that were building up flow free. But she wouldn't. She wouldn't allow herself that satisfaction. _Haven't cried in eleven years, not going to start now._

She wondered how much booze she would have to drink to poison herself.

* * *

When she came to school she was in a state of slight drunkenness. She skipped class and smoked a few more cigarettes, technically breaking several rules, but not enough to get noticed by the teachers.

Enough, however, to get noticed by her brother.

She was behind the cafeteria, leaning next to a dumpster - _ha ha, like the trash that I am_ \- and puffing another cigarette carelessly. Smoking wasn't allowed on school property, but damn if she wasn't going to try to enjoy at least some part of this day. Her cheeks were slightly puffy and pink from all the smacking, her eyes just a little absent, her perfume slightly mixed in with the scent of tobacco and alcohol.

In the distance, she could see a blonde boy coming toward her. At first she thought it was Riff Raff, but then he got closer, and she realized it was some kid two years below her. He approached cautiously, looking shifty eyed, and she knew immediately what he was going to ask her for.

The reason she was able to pay for her addictive habits.

"You're Magenta Vitus?" he said, looking at her warily. She nodded. "Hey, um, look. . . . I've kind of heard some shit from the other people around here, that you, um. . . . Look, I'm a virgin, okay? And my friends won't stop teasing me for it, and I was thinking, if I could at least -"

"Fifty silver dollars a fuck, kid." Magenta had no time for this boy's excuses. If he wanted some treatment from the school whore, he would have to have the finances for it.

"Er - I wasn't wanting to full on fuck you. . . . I just wanted you to. . . . you know. . . ." and he made a disgusting sucking noise with his mouth.

"Sixty."

"Seriously? How the shit is going down on me worth more than a fuck?"

"Because unlike my cunt, my mouth is visible and I don't know if you have some sort of contagious warts or not."

"Fine," the kid dug into his backpack and handed her the money. "Just do it, will you?"

She got him off within three minutes, and as he was zipping his pants up, she heard the voice.

" _Magenta_!?"

Riff Raff had just rounded the corner around the cafeteria, Pearl on his arm, and he was staring at her with an opened mouthed expression of such shock it was almost funny.

There was no point in trying to cover up what she'd been doing; kneeling in front of the boy with him zipping himself up his pants, it was obvious. The kid looked like a deer caught in traffic.

"I - she - I was just -" he stuttered.

One harsh look from Riff Raff shut him up, and he quickly walked away with his head down. If he'd had a tail, it would've been between his legs.

"What the hell - ?" he had turned those eyes on her now, and the emotions there were a mix of shock and hurt. Why he'd be hurt, she didn't know. Her own eyes flicked briefly to Pearl, who had all of the shock but none of the hurt.

Magenta turned and spit against the wall. The sight of her saliva, tinged with white, was enough to make Riff Raff scream.

" _What the absolute fuck, Magenta?! What were you - you're on school grounds, you could've been caught and expelled! Who the hell was that kid, why would you - ?!_ "

She felt a flash of anger hit her drunk head, and just to spite him, she pulled out a handful of silver dollars from her book bag and said, "Because I gotta pay for my cigarettes somehow."

She'd never seen her brother's face turn so red. "What's wrong, Riffy?" she said, standing up and staring him down with just as much viciousness. "Got your dick in a twist? I'm not doing anything wrong or illegal, so why're you so pissed, huh?"

"Magenta," it was Pearl speaking, and her voice was so irritating that Magenta almost punched her right there on the spot. "Riff Raff is just looking out for you. You know that sexual activity isn't allowed on school grounds -"

"No shit. I just don't care." Her stare was so intense that Pearl shrunk back a bit and immediately shut her mouth.

Magenta slung her book bag over her shoulder and started to walk away. She saw no point in carrying the conversation any further.

" _Where are you going?!_ " Riff Raff spluttered behind her. " _I'm not done talking -_ "

"I am," was all she said, and she didn't look back once.

* * *

Magenta was still inwardly reeling from the encounter, so much that after school she decided to do something she'd later regret for the rest of her life.

She could see Riff Raff in the parking lot, next to Pearl's car, and she could tell by the look on his face what he was ranting to her about. He was red, his voice was raised, and she could vaguely hear her name. Pearl looked at a loss for how to comfort him, occasionally opening her mouth only to snap it shut again. _Stupid girl, just talk to him, he likes to be agreed with when he's ranting about something. . . ._

She saw someone approaching her out of the corner of her eye and almost groaned. The one thing that could make her birthday worse. . . .

Marvel De Lordy was grinning at her with those gray teeth; they'd once been silver, but the years had dulled them. He'd grown incredibly tall and wide, big enough to crush her if he wanted to. Those deadly blue eyes roamed up and down her body with a barely-concealed lust, and she fought the urge to pull her sweater tighter around herself.

"How's it going, Magenta?" he said, somehow managing to make those words sound sexual. "I heard it was your birthday, my little rose. I got you something. Don't throw it in my face this time, okay?"

He held out another small velvet box, so similar to the one he'd given her on the day she'd realized she was in love with Riff Raff. _Fucking Riff Raff._

He opened it. A small ring, with tiny rose designs engraved all around it.

She could feel him. Not De Lordy, but Riff Raff, staring at her. She turned away from De Lordy and looked directly at her brother, who was watching her with such intensity it almost felt he was looking at her very soul.

Magenta decided to do it just to hurt him further.

"Thank you, De Lor - _Marvel_ , it's lovely." And she took the ring and slipped it on her finger.

Riff Raff's choking gasp was audible all across the parking lot. De Lordy's look of surprise wasn't welcoming at first, but then he gave her a pleased smile and said, "Care to join me for a drive, little rose?"

"Why not?" She took his outstretched arm and let him lead her to his hovercraft.

* * *

De Lordy, to her surprise, made no attempt to talk to her during the drive. He'd opened the passenger door for her and pulled out of the school's parking lot, and she'd spent the entire drive out looking at Riff Raff's livid face in the distance. Pearl had her hands on his arm, and she was trying to talk to him, but from the looks of it he wasn't listening.

 _You really ought to learn how the hell to deal with him_ , Magenta thought. _If you knew that, you'd be absolutely perfect for each other._

Riff Raff Vitus and Pearl Starlite. He was quiet, considerate, and a genius. She was kind, beautiful, and also a genius. They'd go together to college, he'd become an astrobiologist and she'd be whatever, and when they got married it would be a huge, grand affair. Their children would be smart and strong and good looking, but they'd never meet their Aunt Magenta. Maybe Riff Raff would tell them someday about their aunt, how she used to be a good kid, but that she got locked up in an asylum because of her perverted feelings for him, or was in jail for trying to kill their mother, or dead; either by drinking herself to death or rotting her lungs out with cigarettes or shooting herself with an antimatter laser or driving herself off a cliff or hitting herself hard enough to crack her own neck. . . .

 _Riff Raff deserves it. He deserves such a good life. He deserves so much better than me._

She would've hit again, if De Lordy hadn't been right there.

Magenta only realized where they were heading at that moment. She'd previously been blankly staring out the window, not paying attention to where he'd been taking her. But they were going, she discovered, out of town.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To my family's private beach house."

"Why?"

It was here that he slid his hand over to squeeze her thigh. "You'll see."

People had touched and squeezed her thighs many times in the past. But this was perhaps the first time she felt uncomfortable with it. She shifted her leg away from him. "I'd rather you take me home."

"No." He drove a bit faster. A few birds barely missed hitting the hovercraft as it sped up. The city turned into a rolling ocean shore beneath them.

"No?"

"We're going to have a great time at the beach house. You'll see."

A feeling of dread settled itself into her stomach. Magenta looked out the window and, as quietly as she could, unhooked her seatbelt. The door to her side of hovercraft was unlocked. . . . she could jump, it was a long way down, but who the fuck cared if she died? She certainly didn't.

 _Riff Raff would_ , said a voice in the back of her head. But her own sense of logic told her that the voice was lying.

De Lordy suddenly locked the doors of the hovercraft. "Sorry," he said, giving her an unnerving smile. "Don't want you falling out."

Soon he was lowering them toward a small but expensive-looking cottage on the shore a good twenty miles outside of the city. Magenta felt her heartbeat speed up and her breathing quicken. _It's fine, it'll be fine,_ she told herself. _He won't do anything. . . . just because we're alone in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean. . . ._

The hovercraft started to feel suffocating. His cologne was everywhere, and it was polluting her lungs more than any of her cigarettes could. She felt her fingers curl involuntarily around her knees, piercing her skin with her nails. She wanted to go home. Why had she come here again? A stupid, petty revenge? To hurt Riff Raff, the only person she loved in this entire damn world?

 _He loved you too, stupid bitch, you were his precious baby sister, and now he won't bother to come looking for you because you drove him away, good fucking going. . . ._

The vehicle landed.

De Lordy got out and went to the door of the cottage, opening it. When he turned and saw Magenta still in the hovercraft, he went to where her door was, unlocked it, and reached out a hand to her.

"Come out, my little rose," he told her. His breath smelled rotten. "I want to show you around the house."

Magenta stayed sitting there, her breathing coming in short, her hands on her knees.

"You look pale, rose," he told her, and then he took her roughly by the bicep and pulled her right out of the vehicle. She stumbled a bit, almost falling right to the ground. "Come on in. I can make you red, in a few minutes."

De Lordy went to the cottage. Magenta turned and looked around. She was wearing high heels, but she could easily take them off and run, couldn't she? There was no where to go, and they were a long ways out of Aldous, but she could get somewhere, anywhere with a phone. . . .

Then she felt De Lordy's arm lock itself around her neck.

She gasped, but the air struggled to get into her lungs. De Lordy was now pulling her toward his cottage, with her in a chokehold, her feet practically dangling and barely brushing the ground. _She was on her back again, her father's hand on her neck, his voice yelling,_ " _Do you feel that, Lavender? Do you fucking feel what I'm doing to you?_ "

De Lordy pushed her roughly inside the cottage. She stumbled and almost landed on her knees, but she managed to stay up. From behind her, she heard him lock the door, and in a split second he was behind her again, two overly-soft hands on her shoulders, and he ran his slimy tongue right up her neck, from collarbone to ear. She cringed and let out a grunt of disgust, and moved to slip out of his grasp. But he seemed to take it for a sound of lust and said, "So, you want me too, huh, little rose? How long have you been holding out on me? What made you decide to come to your senses today? Is it because it's your birthday?"

His hands ran down her arms, but she managed to break free, stumbling a few steps forward before she turned to look at him. She could feel her body shaking, and his eyes swept all the way down, before he said, "Look at that. You want it so bad you're trembling. Come here, little rose -"

But she made a quick movement for an open wine bottle on a nearby counter, and smashed it against the wall. De Lordy's eyes widened when he saw her point the sharp, ragged edge of it toward him, the bottle dripping its bloody red contents. "Touch me again and I swear I'll kill you," she said, but her voice sounded as frightened as a child's.

"Put it down, rose," De Lordy said, advancing toward her. She swung the bottle harshly and he lunged backwards, trying to avoid it. There it was; a spark of fear in his eyes.

Then he thrust himself at her again. She swung hard and hit him right in the face.

The scream that erupted from him was enough to almost curdle her blood. His hands shot to his face, something red was on it and she couldn't tell if it was blood or wine. When he pulled his fingers away to look at her, she saw the slashes, long and jagged and beading red and running right down the side of his face. One of his round blue eyes had a splash of scarlet in it. And it was filled with rage.

"You bitch!" He yelled. _Her father, screaming at her from five years into the past._ " _You want a fucking taste of this, huh, slut?" He said._ " _You want to get hit, too?_ "

"Fucking cut me open, you're going to pay for that, you stupid whore!" Before she knew what was happening, the bottle had been knocked out of her hands. _Her father's face kept flashing, calling her bitch, slut, whore, stupid, worthless, pathetic, disgusting, pervert, insane. . . ._

As De Lordy grabbed her by the hair and forced her into another room, she couldn't tell which voices were his, her father's, or her own anymore. And as De Lordy locked her in the room alone, still screeching at her from the other side, all she could do was bunch her hands into fists and hit herself in the face, over and over, so not to let the panic take over her mind and win her sanity.


	7. New Day's Dawn

**Guest:** Responding to you here because I can't PM you. That's actually the entire reason I wanted to interpret Magenta here as I did. She is, in almost all the stage shows and fanfics I've seen, the more stable out of the two siblings. I decided I wanted to try something different and make her (for now) the one who's having the more major issues. Riff Raff is definitely going to get his, because let's be honest the guy has plenty of problems, but at this point in time it's Mag who's having more to deal with. And thanks; I rarely see hitting discussed anywhere, so when the idea of using it as one of Mag's self-destructive coping strategies came along, I couldn't resist.

Anyway, chapter seven is now up! We are now officially about halfway done with this story! And you guys, I feel like absolute RHPS trash right now; my five year old sister now knows all the lyrics to Time Warp because I've been playing it so often. What have I done.

Trigger warning for self harm, sexual assault, and violence. You guys are probably aware that this is a thing by now, but I'm still going to keep the TW.

RHPS belongs to the fabulous Richard O'Brien.

* * *

 **Chapter 7: New Day's Dawn**

 _Her face had turned a shade of white that had nothing to do with the pale foundation she was using. Her eyes bulged a bit, her breathing shaky, her arms looking ready to collapse and let the baby fall to her lap. . . ._

 _Riff Raff moved to gently take Sienna out of Magenta's grasp, and Magenta didn't protest. Once he had the softly whimpering infant in one arm, he opened her purse, and reached in to take out a small bottle of pills. Benzodiazepines; Magenta's anti-anxiety drugs. Prescribed specifically for these flashbacks._

 _"Do you need one?" he asked calmly, opening the bottle._

 _She didn't respond for a second, but then slowly her eyes turned to the pills. "I won't. . . . be able to. . . . drive if I take that. . . ." she said, struggling to inhale and exhale. One hand snapped upwards, halfway to her face, ready to hit - but then she redirected it to the steering wheel and gripped it instead._

 _"You're hardly in a state to drive now."_

 _Her eye twitched a bit. "I'm breastfeeding. . . . I can't. . . ."_

 _"I know," Riff Raff said. "But we have enough money to go back and pick up some baby formula, if we need to. What do you want to do?"_

 _Magenta stayed quiet for a long moment before finally whispering, "I think you should drive."_

 _So they switched places, Riff Raff stopping to put Sienna back into her car seat, before he started up the hovercraft again. Magenta seemed to have calmed down; she still refused to take a pill, but she was breathing more steadily. "I'm sorry," Riff Raff said after a pause. "I never would've brought that day up if I knew you'd get a flashback."_

 _"I'm fine," Magenta said. "It was simply a. . . . painful experience, to say the least."_

 _"We don't have to talk about this anymore if you don't want to."_

 _"No," Magenta said, leaning back a bit and closing her eyes. "No, I want to. I don't think I've ever completely opened up to you about it. . . ."_

* * *

Dark. The room was so fucking dark. She couldn't for the life of her find a light switch, and while normally she loved the darkness, tonight it felt like it was trying to choke her.

 _Choke you, just like he tried to, just like father tried to. . . ._

She felt her organs swirl around inside her again, and then it was hard to breathe, the dark really _was_ choking her, and her head felt so light. . . .

Magenta had spent the last thirteen hours going in and out of this panic. It never fully left, just like she herself couldn't leave the room. _This dark ass fucking room, no goddamn windows or light, what kind of room doesn't have windows or a light?_

The pantry, that's what kind. She discovered via feeling her way around that that was where she was. The door was locked from the outside, no way to leave. She was surrounded by shelves, stocked with cans and packages of food. _At least I won't go hungry,_ she thought. Not that she wanted to eat. She knew she would just puke it back up again.

She laid down on her side, curled up against the comfortingly cold floor, and pushed one hand against her cheek. Pain shot all the way down through her neck. She'd lost track of all the times she'd hit herself today, and she knew that her face probably wasn't in the best of shape. Still, the ache was comforting.

The door unlocked. De Lordy's form filled the doorframe.

Her breathing sped up so suddenly that she almost passed out then and there. She couldn't see his face as he shut the door behind him, but she felt his hands, one grabbing her roughly by the arm and the other catching her hurting face. He yanked her up into a sitting position, and suddenly his face was right in front of hers, the smell of his rotting breath violating her nostrils.

"I'm gonna be going to school now," he said, his voice a harsh and ragged. "But I want to feel you first."

With that his mouth crushed hers, his tongue flicking his nasty saliva all over her lips. One of his hands went to her neck - _Father why_ \- and the other one roughly grabbed her breast, his nails cutting through the cloth of her shirt and into her skin. She flailed her arms, punched him in the shoulder and the sides of his head, and he grunted against her. His hand on her neck tightened, while the one on her breast started to travel lower. . . .

She began to thrash her entire body in protest, not caring if she injured her neck in the process, and De Lordy only stopped when she managed to knee him in the groin. His putrid gasp filled her airways as he let go of her neck, and he took his hands off her completely. She scrambled backwards until she was standing up, and aimed a kick at him, but he grabbed her ankle and yanked her back down.

 _Father, why are you doing this, don't hit me again, don't set my stuff on fire, don't call me by Mother's name, oh fuck, Riff Raff where are you, Riff Raff, big brother,_ _ **please**_ _-_

But Riff Raff wasn't there to save her this time.

De Lordy's fist hit her right in the nose, not hard enough to break it, but enough to have it burst like a dam with blood. "Stupid bitch," he growled.

 _I am, I know I'm a stupid bitch, I tell myself that every fucking day, I don't need you to tell me that Father -_

De Lordy got up. She was briefly glad that he couldn't see his face in the dark, but then wished she could, because this shadow of a man leering over her was Father now. She could see Father's green eyes, almost identical to her own, glowing deadly and poisonous. . . .

"I'll be back after school, slut." Was it Father speaking, or De Lordy? She couldn't tell. "And when I come back, little rose, you won't be able to walk when I'm done with you."

He locked the door behind him, and she was stuck in that dark room alone again.

* * *

Riff Raff was concerned when Magenta didn't come home that day, but not as concerned as he was frustrated, angry, and hurt. And of all people, she had to go to De Lordy, and he knew, he just fucking _knew_ she'd done it to spite him.

Pearl had been hearing about this endlessly as she drove him back to his house. He wasn't even sure anymore if she was listening, but his tirade continued anyway. "Why the _hell_ would she go to De Lordy? Fucking De Lordy? She knows I hate him, she's always hated him too, I swear on my grave that she did it just to get under my damn skin. Well, she got her wish, fucking _Magenta_ , why him? Why that miserable excuse for a life form? She doesn't _get_ it, she doesn't fucking _get_ how much better she deserves, she's always treating herself and me and everyone else like crap! Damn it, De Lordy, why fucking _De Lordy_ -"

Pearl looked pensively out the front window as she drove. A couple times she bit her lip, opened her mouth to say something to him, but closed it again in nervousness. A bit of his frustration aimed itself at her, for not saying anything, for not offering any sort of opinion, but he kept his rant purely on Magenta.

When they pulled into his driveway, right in front of his apartment, he had reduced himself down to deep breathing and angered grumbles. "Thank you for driving me home," he said, his voice still showing audible rage. He leaned over to peck her on the cheek, robotically, doing it more because it was expected of him as a boyfriend than because he wanted to.

Pearl was chewing on the inside of her cheek nervously, and when he was about to get out, she said, "Can I suggest something?"

Riff Raff sighed, grateful that for once she was going to voice a second opinion, and not just sit there and look nervous like she always did when he needed to vent. "Yes?"

"Do you think. . . ." she trailed off, moved to say "nevermind," but a wave of his hand to keep going made her continue. ". . . . I mean, I'm not saying you are, it's just an idea. . . . I'm not sure how to say this. . . . I don't know how you'll react. . . ."

"Just say it, Pearl," he said, letting a bit of annoyance leak into his voice.

"Do you think. . . . you could maybe be. . . ." she took a deep breath and looked away from him. ". . . . jealous?"

He blinked a few times, trying to comprehend what she'd just said. "Jealous? Of Magenta?"

"Of. . . . De Lordy. . . ." she gripped her steering wheel tighter, still not looking at him. ". . . . I think you sound like you're jealous. . . . that he and Magenta are going to go do whatever." Here, she finally got the courage to look him in the eye, and he found that they were shining with tears. "You. . . . you sound like you wish it were you instead. With her."

Riff Raff found himself unable to respond. The thought that he could be jealous never crossed his mind. Angry, hurt, confused, concerned, and rather sick to his stomach, sure. But certainly not jealous.

Was he?

"I'm sorry," said Pearl, a few small tears escaping. "I didn't mean to upset you or anything, but. . . . Riff Raff, I _notice._ I notice the way you talk about her, and how much you miss her, and I see the way you look at her. Like she's an angel. . . ." Pearl sniffled and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "And I notice how you feel about me. You never look at me the way you look at Magenta. You don't put any effort into kissing me, you don't like to talk too deeply with me, and when we make love, you're just not all _there_."

A few open sobs were making their way into her voice now. He went to put a hand on her back, but she waved him away. "I love you," she said. "I'm in love with you, and I've _told_ you this before, on the phone, in person, in bed, and you never. . . . you never _once_ said it back. Because you don't love me. You love Magenta. . . . I'm sorry, Riff Raff, but I have to go now."

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she cut him off with a "Please!" and he got out of the car. He watched as she drove away, a million thoughts racing through his head.

 _Me? In love with Magenta? That's not true. She's my sister, I could never. . . . that's just wrong. Why would Pearl ever think. . . ?_

He slowly walked into the apartment. Alone; Father wasn't home yet and Magenta wasn't back either. _Probably still with that scumbag De Lordy, I bet he won't even try to get her off, he'll probably just go until he comes and then shoo her away -_

He stopped himself right in the middle of that thought. _Why do I care if she comes or not? What is it my business what she does in bed?_ His fists tightened as he went to their room and dropped his book bag on his bed.

Then, slowly, he thought to himself: _Maybe Pearl has a point._

Not about him being in love with Magenta. No, that wasn't true at all. . . . but he supposed he could see why Pearl would think. . . .

 _I do talk about Magenta a lot,_ he thought, _more than I do anyone else. And I. . . ._

 _And I what?_

He sighed deeply and went to the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror, long and hard. _And I. . . . I do think she's pretty. Beautiful, in fact. The most beautiful woman in the world -_

He cut himself off sharply at that thought. He thought Magenta was the most beautiful woman in the world? He realized, with a widening of his eyes, that he did.

 _. . . . I can't think about this anymore._ His thoughts strayed to Pearl instead. . . . she was absolutely right about one thing. He didn't love her. He didn't even feel remotely attracted to her, even after over a year into their relationship. He thought at first that he could force it, could learn to love her if he just spent more time with her. . . .

He'd been wrong. Riff Raff liked Pearl very much, but not romantically. He thought she was pretty, but not enough to physically lust for her. When they had sex, he'd felt the basic pleasure, but it still hadn't been very. . . . memorable. She'd thought of it as "making love," he'd just seen it as something to do when she wanted it. He'd inwardly assumed that he simply didn't like sex as much as a lot of other Transylvanians.

Riff Raff had known from the very beginning that he wasn't interested in her, so why had he ever. . . ?

 _Magenta._

Of course it went right back to Magenta. The first time he'd kissed Pearl, it had been to piss Magenta off, hadn't it? And when he'd decided to ask Pearl out on another date, he remembered being sure his sister was within earshot, so that she could hear him. . . . And had he not been like that the entire time he was dating Pearl? Talking loudly on the phone so Magenta could hear him. Making sure to kiss Pearl whenever Magenta was around to see. Never once telling Pearl those words - " _I love you_ " - not only because it would've been a boldfaced lie, but because they felt like they were reserved for someone else -

"Fuck," Riff Raff said. _I don't have feelings for my sister. I don't. She's my sister. She's my sister._

 _The most beautiful woman in the world. . . ._

* * *

Seven more hours until he came back.

Seven more hours to prepare herself for the assault. The violation. The thing that would likely send her from suicidal thoughts to actions.

Seven more hours of panic, anxiety, screaming and banging at the door until her arms bled, trying desperately to break it down. Of hitting herself in the face even more, until she could feel the swelling and taste the blood in her own mouth, trying to clear her head, but it wasn't _working_. . . .

Seven more hours of sitting on the floor, gripping herself by the hair, rocking back and forth, very deliberately not crying.

Seven more hours of total and absolute darkness. Nothing to see, she was completely blind. There was, she eventually concluded, no fucking lightswitch, but she realized she was glad, because she didn't really want to see the room that she was going to be raped in.

. . . .

Six more hours.

* * *

Riff Raff knew something was wrong when he saw De Lordy in class the next day. He looked disgruntled, frustrated, yet a bit satisfied. And half of his face looked like a beast had clawed it open.

Riff Raff's sense of ominousness increased when he didn't see Magenta at school at all that day.

He spent his day with Pearl - who seemed to be pointedly not bringing up their conversation from yesterday - and he knew he was visibly distracted. So when Professor Starlite called him up to talk to them shortly before lunch, he at first figured it was about this.

"Sit down, Vitus," the professor said. They looked visibly irritated.

"Good afternoon, Professor," he said. He took a deep breath to explain himself. "I realize why you called me up, and I just want to say that there's a lot on my mind -"

Starlite held up their hand and Riff Raff stopped. "I know there's a lot on your mind. There's a lot on my mind, too." They leaned in closer and looked Riff Raff straight in the eye. "And right now, I'm talking to you, not as your teacher, but as the parent of the girl you're dating."

Riff Raff suddenly remembered. He'd let Pearl go home crying yesterday. And Starlite was Pearl's parent, her beloved Zaza, to whom she was very close. . . .

 _Shit._

"When my daughter came home crying yesterday," Starlite said. "I wanted to drive straight back to your house and break down your door and give you a good long piece of my mind." They reached up to rub their temples. "But I didn't. And it may be highly unprofessional, what I'm doing right now, but I want to hear your side of the story. Pearl wouldn't tell me anything. What happened?"

"It was a brief. . . . _conflict_ , Professor," Riff Raff said. "It was never my intention to make Pearl cry, and she left without letting me try to comfort her." Not exactly a lie. "But we have worked it out." Straight up lie. "I never intend to make her cry again." Nothing but the truth.

Pearl herself walked into the room that very moment. "Zaza, have you seen - Riff Raff?" She stopped and took in the scene before her, her eyes widening. "Oh, am I. . . . am I interrupting something, Zaza?"

"No, Pearl," Starlite said. "Actually, I think it would do well for you to come sit down and discuss this with us."

And with that Riff Raff settled into one of the most uncomfortable conversations of his life.

* * *

"I'm really sorry about that, Riff Raff, I didn't think they'd. . . . I didn't want to bring it back up again. . . ." Pearl trailed off awkwardly as they walked down the hall together.

"It's fine, Pearl," he said, scanning the halls for De Lordy. "I feel a bit odd for having to lie so much to your Zaza."

They'd ended up telling Starlite that their argument was about whether or not to move in together once they left for Strangelove University. If they both got accepted, that is.

She shrugged. "I didn't want to have to tell them. . . . I mean, that's your business. . . ." she looked up at him suddenly. "By the way, I spoke with De Lordy."

"You what?" Riff Raff's head jerked toward her.

"I talked to De Lordy. Asked him about. . . . _her_ ," Pearl said, seemingly unable to bring up Magenta's name. "I asked if they'd had a good time yesterday, and he said. . . . well, Riff Raff, he said it had been a little rough, but he planned on having an even better time with her when he got home. He also said to tell you that she. . . . she agreed to marry him."

Riff Raff felt the blood drain out of his face. _So she's holed up at his place, huh? Waiting for another fuck? Having lots of fun? Wearing a traditional Transylvanian engagement earring?_ "Well, he can take that smug attitude and shove it up -"

He stopped when he saw the look in Pearl's eyes. Hurt, pure hurt, a type of sadness that was gnawing at her deeply as she looked away from him and down to her shoes. He stopped walking and wrapped his arms around her, giving her a gentle kiss. He wasn't sure why he did; she knew he didn't love her. But, by the way she gripped the front of his blouse and kissed him back, she didn't care.

"You're a lifesaver, Pearl," he said, feeling nothing but stabs of guilt as she looked at him with such adoring, pained eyes.

* * *

Half an hour left.

Magenta had taken to knocking over the cans and packages of food, still not hungry despite having been locked up for nearly a good twenty hours. She supposed it was the anxiety clinging to her mind and body that was keeping her from wanting to eat. She was feeling light headed, her body ready to just give up and kneel over, her heart still ready to bust itself out of her chest. Her face was aching too much for her to want to hit it again, so she took to making a big mess instead.

She stepped on a can and it rolled her foot out, leading to her falling right onto the piles of food. She let out an airy, insane laugh; surrounded by food, and not the slightest desire to eat.

A sweaty hand curled itself over a what felt like a can. She ran her fingers over the top. It was one of those cans with a tab to pop it open. . . . without thinking she turned and reached over to pop it, faintly smelling something like canned beef as she opened it. She tossed the can and food aside, instead taking the top, feeling the sharp edge cut into her palm. . . .

 _Would this be sharp enough to kill me?_

 _I could find out right here, I could cut my throat open now and see how De Lordy would feel about working his dick up for a corpse. . . ._

De Lordy.

She squeezed the sharp can lid in her hand again and got an idea.

Thirty minutes later, she could hear the heavy, clunky footsteps of De Lordy coming to the pantry. For the first time in twenty hours, she was calm. Her heart felt. . . . not normal, but slower in her chest. She took deep, slightly shaky breaths, and her head felt just a little better. She kept her hands - each grasping a can top - behind her back, and leaned backwards against a shelf, sitting with her knees up to her chin. She'd taken her heels off, set them aside after wishing them farewell.

The door unlocked. "Little rose," came his voice, "I'm back for you."

When the door opened, the entire house behind him was dark, but her eyes could see enough to make out his huge, shadowy frame. He walked in, kicking the food aside, and knelt down in front of her. His hand reached out to stroke her face, and she almost flinched at how soft and squishy it was. "I've been waiting for you all day, pretty rose, are you ready to -"

And then he screamed as her arms lashed out and pierced both his eyes with the can lids.

His hands shot back to his face, and she didn't hesitate to jump to her feet and hop over him; vaguely, she heard one of the can lids hit the floor, which meant the other one was still stuck in his eye. . . . she ran, her body being pushed on nothing but adrenaline. It was so dark, but the house, unlike the pantry, had at least a little bit of light. She crashed into a few bits of furniture - the table against her hip almost hurt enough to make her stop running - and she tore open the door and sprinted outside.

The large Transylvanian moon was high, but there was just a tinge of pale blue light in the distance of the otherwise starry sky. The ocean was like a flat black space of nothing in the distance, and the trees were jagged, shadowy skeletons in the distance. She made a break for them, taking only a millisecond to breathe in the fresh air, appreciate the beauty of the outside world in a way she never had before. She could hear De Lordy's screams behind her - " _Damn it bitch, you fucking blinded me, you stabbed my eyes out, you slut, you fucking worthless slut -_ "

It got fainter and fainter as she sped through the trees, alongside the road, until she could no longer hear him at all.

* * *

Riff Raff was about to bed Pearl when he got the call.

They was naked in his room, on his bed, him bending over her, her moaning as the tip of him poked her entrance, when the phone went off loudly and mood-breakingly. In truth, Riff Raff was a bit glad; they'd just gotten back from school and he was truthfully only doing it to make her feel a bit better. She'd been so clingy, so needy with the kisses she gave him today, and the hand that was holding his in the car on the way to his home had started to wander. He'd given up and invited her into his room, hoping it would get his mind off Magenta and De Lordy. Even as he was on the edge of penetrating her, it didn't.

Pearl let out a grunt of frustration and gripped his hips tighter, but he muttered "We never get calls unless it's important," and got up. Father was still at work, maybe it was him calling to tell Riff Raff to go pick up some groceries that he'd forgotten (again.) He looked at the caller ID. . . . Payphone, about nineteen miles outside of the city. A bit confused, he picked up.

"Hello?"

"Riff Raff?"

The voice on the other end was his sister's. And she didn't sound right at all. Her words shook, her breathing was quick, and the fear was almost tangible through the phone.

"Magenta?" He said, and suddenly he was gripping the phone tight against his ear.

"I need you to come get me." She was audibly trying to keep her voice steady, but failing. "I'm. . . . Fuck, Riff Raff, I don't know where I am. I'm not in Aldous, that's for damn sure. I just found this payphone. . . ."

"I'll come get you," he said without hesitation. "I have your location from the caller ID. Magenta, what are you doing so far away?"

"I don't have much more time to talk. It's three minutes a silver dollar and I left my book bag in his hovercraft, I only had one in my pocket. Please, just come get me Riff Raff, I'm -" she cut herself off, but he knew what she was going to say. _I'm scared._

"I'll be right there. I promise."

"Hurry." She hung up.

Swearing, Riff Raff turned to go back to his room, but Pearl was standing in the doorway, now fully clothed and looking at him intensely. "That was her, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Riff Raff said. "I need to go get her, I don't know what happened, but she's scared out of her mind and she's not in the city anymore." His hands went to grasp at his hair in frustration. "I don't even have a way to _get_ there, Father's got the car, maybe I can hotwire something -"

But Pearl waved her hand to silence him and said, "You don't need to. My car is right there. Get dressed and we'll go."

"Pearl -"

"Don't." She said, shaking her head and heading to the door. "Please, just don't -"

"I'm sorry."

To this, she said nothing, and only went to start up the vehicle.

* * *

As she hung up the pay phone, the fear crept its way back into her body.

Magenta was alone at the side of the road, and she slipped slowly back into the woods, moving to sit down against a tree. The shadows surrounded her, but she could at least see now, the sky slowly turning from black into a dark shade of blue. Everything felt heavy; her limbs, her head, her eyes. She longed to let herself drift into sleep, but she couldn't. What if Riff Raff drove right by and didn't see her sitting there?

What if De Lordy drove by and did?

She felt the panic lick at her again and had to remind herself that De Lordy couldn't see anything now. She'd blinded him, cut each eye right in half. A pang of guilt hit her, but she told herself that he deserved it. He was going to rape her.

He deserved it. Right?

 _Maybe he didn't. Maybe_ I _deserved it. I said I'd go with him. I accepted his ring. I'm the school slut, the whore, it's not like I don't put out already. I've heard the stories, the old stories that girls like me deserve it. . . . We ask for it. Did I ask for it?_

Her short skirt. Her fishnets. Her high heels. Her makeup. Her flirting. Did she deserve it? Was a near rape what she got for acting like this?

 _Wouldn't put it past me. I deserve a lot of the stupid shit that I get._

She deserved these bruises on her face. The cuts on her hands from the can lid. The flashbacks to Father beating her. The constant desire to die. Why wouldn't she deserve this, too?

Riff Raff, coming to get her. . . . she didn't deserve the most beautiful big brother in the world. Especially not with the sick feelings she harbored for him.

She almost wanted to cry, but what was the point? She didn't even deserve the satisfaction of tears.

The headlights almost blinded her as the car pulled up next to the pay phone.

* * *

"Magenta!"

Riff Raff opened the car door and found himself hopping out of the moving car as he saw his sister, ignoring Pearl's shout of "Careful!" behind him. The sight of Magenta, as the light of the car hit her, sitting against a tree, almost made him stop. He choked a bit on his own spittle, horrified at the sight of her.

Palms slashed. A large amount of blood staining the front of her dark blue shirt, crusted around her chin and cheeks and arms, clinging to her nose. And her face. . . . every inch of the skin on her cheeks and jaw was covered in black and blue splotches. Her green eyes were so blank he feared for a second that she was dead; but she let out a strangled sound and got up, her body moving like the marionette of a very amatuer puppet master.

Magenta stumbled to Riff Raff and collapsed into his arms. When he heard her mumble " _Riffy_. . . ." in a broken tone, he found a few tears escaping his eyes.

"Magenta, you're. . . ." Okay? Hurt? Alive? He didn't know how to finish that sentence. All he knew was that De Lordy had done something, he'd hurt her, De Lordy had harmed his angel and he would pay. He would pay hugely. Riff Raff scooped up Magenta bridal style and carried her to the backseat of Pearl's car, opening the door to slide her in, not hearing Pearl's shouts of "Is she okay? Why is there so much blood?"

His Genta was injured. She was injured, but she was alive, and as he slid into the backseat with her, he'd never wanted to hold her tighter, never wanted to kiss her more -

 _Kiss her?_

This thought echoed in his head as he felt her leaning into his shoulder, as he felt the light of the new day's dawn gently enter the windows. _Yes. Kiss her._

Pearl was right.

Riff Raff was in love with Magenta.


	8. Let Me In

I have returned! And I brought a new chapter!

I absolutely love this one. Just. . . . arrrggghhh the feels!

Trigger warning for assault and self harm.

RHPS is Richard O'Brien's stuffs. It be not my stuffs.

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Let Me In**

 _When they stepped out of the hovercraft to make their way into the bank, Riff Raff pulled his sister into a long, tight embrace. She blinked, confused, but wrapped her arms back around him anyway._

 _"And what is this for?" She murmured into his ear._

 _"So that I know that you're still here and that_ thing _De Lordy didn't break you," he said. His voice came out in such a rough, hateful growl that Magenta almost pulled away._

 _"I assure you, I'm not broken," Magenta said firmly. "In thought I was for a long time, but I realize now that I'm not."_

 _After they got their money from the bank and went to pay their bills, Magenta took over driving again. She let out a low sigh and said, "I guess I should be grateful to Pearl Starlite. If she hadn't said what she'd said, you might have never. . . ."_

 _"Not never," Riff Raff said. "I would've realized, eventually. But she did significantly speed up the process."_

 _"I'm grateful to her. Even though I do still hate remembering your year with her."_

 _"I was, to put it mildly, an asshole that entire year," Riff Raff said. "I was using her to hurt you and I'd assumed she'd be stupid enough not to notice. I meant it, when I told her I was sorry. And I never told her this, for fear of causing her even more pain, but I'm thankful to her for helping me figure it out."_

 _"She deserved a hell of a lot better than you," Magenta teased._

 _"That she did. But what she got was a lot better than me. She was accepted to Strangelove, and she's quite a renowned brain surgeon now. Has a wife and three kids, last time I heard."_

 _"When did you last hear?" A bit of jealousy tinged Magenta's voice._

 _"About six months ago. She was in the news for performing brain surgery on the Old Queen Rosemary Furter." He gave a small smile and stroked her shoulder with his fingers. "And if you cared to watch the news, you'd know that. No need to be envious, my love."_

 _"I'm not envious."_

 _"Are too."_

 _"Am not."_

 _"Are too."_

 _"Riff Raff, I will beat you with a feather duster."_

 _"Sounds sexy. But not in front of Sienna, please."_

* * *

"I'm not going to the police."

"Magenta, I really think you should -"

"No."

"Why not? Why don't you want him to get what he deserves?"

"I cut his eyes out. That's enough."

"Do you want him to do to someone else what he tried to do to you? Why are you defending him?"

"I'm not defending him."

"Yes, you are. You're keeping him safe."

"Stop it, Riff Raff. You're being an asshole. I said I didn't want to do press charges, that should fucking be enough for you."

It was four days after he'd brought his sister home, and though she'd given him a basic outline of what had happened, Magenta was refusing to go to the police with this. She had yet to give a reason as to why; instead she lay curled up on the couch, staring blankly at the television with a cigarette between her fingers. Riff Raff was seething with frustration.

No police. No hospital for her injuries. No allowing Riff Raff to do something about it. She'd said "no" on everything he suggested.

In the four days since he'd found her, Magenta had stayed home from school to let her battered face heal up some. It was still violently dark, but no longer black, instead fading into a deep shade of violet. It was their day off from school now, and she would have to go back tomorrow to avoid having to drop completely out. Riff Raff was prepared to walk her to and from the school, to stay with her all day and deflect questions about her face. . . . But he got the feeling now that she wouldn't appreciate any of those actions.

De Lordy hadn't come to school, either. Rumors were floating around that he'd been attacked by a beast and lost his eyes; he'd apparently contacted the teachers and told them this. _Of course,_ Riff Raff thought bitterly. _No need to tell them all the truth, that would mean admitting that he kidnapped my Genta. . . ._

And now Magenta was refusing to come forward.

"Can you please at least tell me why?" He said. When she didn't answer, he went and turned off the television before snatching her cigarette out of her hand, being met with a protest.

"Fucking hell, you bastard, you really want to know why?" Magenta sat up, her eyes filled with rage. "Because no one will believe me. Because he's a Lord's son and I'm just the local slut, just looking for attention and sympathy or wanting to ruin his reputation. Of course he didn't try to rape me, they'll say, and you know why they'll say that? Because it's my word against his, and no one, fucking _no one_ is going to believe a thing I say."

She stood up and stared him straight in the eye, her words piercing him. "And you know what else? Maybe I deserve that. Maybe I deserve all the shit that happened, because we both know what a damn horrible bitch I am. I sleep around, I drink too much, I smoke, I have no goddamn friends, I fuck people for money, and I -"

She cut herself off with a hiss and a harsh smack to the face.

Riff Raff's eyes widened. Did she just. . . ?

Magenta's face - the portions that weren't covered in purple - paled, and she muttered "Shit," before turning and bolting for the door. Gripping her cigarette in his hand, Riff Raff followed.

"Magenta, what was that? _Why did you do that_?" He caught her arm and realized, in one brief second, that despite telling him all that De Lordy had done to her, she never once mentioned how the bruises had come to be on her face.

"Let go of me -" she turned to him, and he almost swore that he could see tears in her eyes, but he blinked once and they were gone.

"Why did you hit yourself? Is that how - ?"

"Damn it Riff Raff, _fucking let go_!" She yanked her arm away from him and opened the door, walking right out into the apartment complex's parking lot. She moved to step out into the street and tripped over her own ankle, landing harshly on her knees with a sharp exhale. Almost childishly, she punched the ground, and Riff Raff could see it again. A shine of tears, only to disappear a second later.

Magenta didn't try to move. She sat there, on her knees, and breathed deeply, looking ready to break. He knelt down next to her, but didn't try to touch her again. "How long have you been hitting yourself?"

"Don't fucking talk to me."

"How long?"

Her breathing grew ragged. ". . . . a while."

"Magenta. . . ."

"I want to go to bed."

"Please. . . . why?"

"Shit, Riff Raff, I don't know!" She burst again, struggling up to her feet to look him in the eye. He was a good six inches taller than her, but somehow her small size didn't have any effect on her viciousness. "Because it's something else I fucking deserve!"

"You don't deserve any of this."

"You don't know that."

"Tell me why. Tell me why you think you deserve it."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because -" She was trembling so hard. He longed to reach out and hold her, but he didn't. "Because you'll hate me even more if I tell you."

"I don't hate you. I could never hate you."

Magenta stared at him with more pain than he'd ever seen in anyone. "Yes, you do and you could. I can't. . . . Riff Raff, just trust me on this. I can't tell anyone. Especially not you."

With that she turned and went back into the house, shutting the door to their room tightly behind her, leaving Riff Raff more confused and worried than he'd ever been.

* * *

So close.

She'd been so damn close to saying those words - _I'm in love with you_. So close to exposing her disgusting sickness to the one person who could never know.

 _Shot them down with an antimatter laser. Two sisters who were caught fucking. Their own mother. And the sluts deserved it. . . ._

 _I deserve it._

As she curled herself up tighter on her bed, thinking of her near entire day trapped in De Lordy's pantry, the words _I deserve it_ replayed in her mind over and over, despite anything in her head that tried to tell her otherwise.

 _I deserve it for wearing those clothes._

You live on the planet Transsexual. Everyone wears those clothes. Even if they didn't, he had no right.

 _I deserve it for sucking that boy off and letting him pay me._

Participating in sex work doesn't make it automatically okay.

 _I deserve it for going with him. For taking that stupid ring._

You had no idea he would do it. You were hurt and jealous and not thinking straight. And you took that ring off and threw it somewhere in the pantry.

 _I deserve it for being such a bitch._

No matter what you are, no one deserves that.

 _I deserve it for having such a fucking gross obsession with my own brother._

To this, her mind had no answer.

* * *

Riff Raff knew what he had to do at school the next day.

He'd been avoiding Pearl since the night they went to pick up Magenta, but today was the day he was going to officially break it off. He needed to; he couldn't keep this thing up with her, not since he'd realized his feelings for his sister.

Feelings. What a nice, dumbed down thing to call it.

He still was in a state of slight shock that he was in love with Magenta. His own sister. Incest and incestuous feelings weren't illegal, but they weren't exactly considered acceptable. It was commonplace in all of Transsexual that people could have sex with and marry whoever they wanted, be it someone of a different or same race, sex, gender, background, age, religious belief. . . . These things happening among relatives, however, was deeply frowned upon. Every year, he heard stories of incestuous couples being killed or assaulted. Sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandparents, grandchildren.

Riff Raff had never given it much thought before, but now he wondered. Was it really as bad as everyone made it out to be? If everyone was consenting and of age, if there was no child grooming or child abuse, was it really that horrible. . . ?

He didn't know the answer to that. He just knew of his own love, and of the consequences it would bring if anyone found out. If Magenta herself found out. . . . He, in truth, had no idea of how she'd react. But he decided, right there, not to ever tell her. She had enough in her head to deal with. Including something she didn't want to tell him, something that she thought might make him hate her.

 _Magenta, if only you knew,_ he thought.

He found Pearl near the Technology building, doing homework. She looked at him with resignation as he approached her.

"Pearl," he said. "We have something we need to talk about."

"Yes, we do," she said with a sigh. She stood up and looked at him, waiting for him to say it.

"I can't be with you anymore."

"I know."

"It's because. . . ." He trailed off, but took a deep breath and continued. "It's because you were right. About Magenta. And I can't keep this up anymore, not when she's always there in the back of my head."

He prayed to whoever was out there that Pearl didn't cry. She didn't, but her face was noticeably sad. "I know," she said again. "And I. . . . I can't pretend I'm not hurt. I am. Because. . . . I really, really do love you." She looked at him with so much pain that he almost wanted to cry for her. "But I get it. You don't feel the same way, and we kept this up for way too long and we both have to move on with our lives."

There was a brief, awkward silence before Riff Raff asked a question that had been burning in the back of his head. "Pearl, Magenta and I, we're siblings. Full blooded siblings. You know that, but you never brought it up. Why?"

To this she looked a bit nervous, and chewed her lip as she looked around to make sure no one was nearby. "Can I tell you a family secret, Riff Raff?"

"Yes?"

"My Zaza, their parents. . . . my grandparents, they're aunt and nephew." She twiddled her thumbs, not looking him in the eye. "She was born a year after he was, and they were friends as kids, before they. . . ." She looked up at him again. "They've been together for over fifty years. They never thought that they'd end up falling for each other. I guess. . . . You just can't really help who you love, can you? And to be honest, they made me realize that a long time ago. . . ." With a sigh, she adjusted her book bag and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "I was bothered that you obviously wanted her instead of me, but I was never bothered by the fact that she's your sister. I hope. . . ." she stood on her tiptoes and gave him one last kiss on the cheek. "I hope that everything works out for you two."

* * *

People stared and pointed and muttered under their breaths, but thankfully, none of the other students directly commented on her face.

Magenta attended all her classes that day, but she didn't pay much attention to any of them. The teachers' eyes widened when they saw her, and Professor Starlite even stopped her on her way out to ask if everything was alright. "I got into an accident," she told them. "Everything's fine."

Everything was not fine. She poured herself a large drink when she got home and slept on the couch until Father woke her up near the end of the night.

"Up, bitch," he growled. "I'm having company soon and I don't want her seeing you all passed out and get the wrong idea. Go to your room."

She got up, slightly hung over, and was about to leave when she realized she needed to talk to someone. Anyone.

"Father?"

"What? What do you want?" He looked at her with such annoyance that she almost shrank away. But she didn't.

"How was your day?"

He stared at her suspiciously, a long pause hanging in the room. The he said, "Fine."

The loneliness was crippling. She kept at it.

"What did you do at work?"

"Built shit. What do you really want?"

"I wanted to talk," she whispered, feeling a sense of dread as he started to make his way toward her.

"You wanna fucking talk? With that ruined ass face?" And then he grabbed her by the chin, squeezing hard on her bruises, and she let out a squeak of pain. "How the hell did you do that, anyway? Get in a fight with a boyfriend or something?"

He let go of her, and her hand flew to her face, hovering over where the pain was. She didn't know why she kept trying, but she did. "Father. . . . Can I ask. . . ?"

"What?" He said, so irritated that he looked ready to hit her. "Why the fuck do you want to talk so bad?"

 _Because I need someone. I'm so tired of being fucking alone all the time._

"Why are you treating me like this?"

This seemed to be an armor-piercing question, because he stared at her for a good few minutes, eyes wide and mouth set. Then he spoke.

"You want to know why I treat you like shit?"

She realized far too late that she'd made a mistake.

He grabbed her neck and squeezed it hard, ramming her into the wall. She felt her windpipe being caught in a vise, felt her father's other hand as it landed a harsh punch into her stomach. All the breath left her body, she started saw little black dots make their way across her vision, but her father's blank, crazy eyes were there. . . .

"I treat you like shit because you are shit," he said, his mouth right against her ear. "You're a worthless, pathetic little slut and I never wanted you. And you know what, Lavender?" Her heart almost stopped when he called her by her mother's name. "You'd be better off dead, and the fact that I'm not smart enough to hide your body is the only reason I haven't killed you yet."

Magenta was on the edge of passing out, but she knew he wasn't talking to her, his daughter; he was talking to his long-gone wife, and he himself was long-gone as well. . . .

He dropped her and she fell to her side, choking gasps clawing their way out of her mouth. She saw the sides of her Father's shoes walking away, saw him straighten out his now-white hair, and heard him say, "Get up, Magenta. I told you to go to your room. I don't want my guest to see you laying there and think I've been fucking a fourteen-year-old."

 _Sixteen_ , Magenta mentally corrected him. She stood up shakily and started to make her way to her and Riff Raff's room.

"Oh, and Magenta?"

She stopped, fear creeping into her bones. She dared a glance back, but Father's eyes were normal, sane.

"I need you to go pick up the mail tomorrow. We should be getting a few bills." He brushed off his clothes, and soon Magenta could hear the voice of some woman entering the apartment. The sounds of the woman and Father moaning in pleasure from his room echoed in her ears until she fell asleep.

* * *

There was a fairly good reason that Riff Raff didn't come home until late in the day, far after Father and his fuckbuddy had gone to sleep.

He had gotten a letter back from Strangelove University. And he hadn't gotten in.

The were very cordial in their letter, citing the reason they had rejected him being that he lacked the money to go. Other than that, he had a brilliant mind, his entrance essay had been one of the best, his school grades were perfect. . . . But there was a tuition to pay, and after looking at his family's financial records, they'd concluded that he simply wasn't able to meet the requirements.

He'd torn up the letter and gone for a long, angry walk around the city. Trying to think, trying to come up with something to do. . . .

He had nothing. He was graduating from upper school in four months and he had applied to no other colleges, and the deadlines were already past. There was a local community college. . . . but it was, to be blunt, one of the worst community colleges in the area. There was work, he could find a job, work to support himself and try to apply again in a few years. . . .

Being an angry crier, he let a few tears slip. _They're not letting me in because I can't pay them. Because I don't have any fucking money. That's such a load of bullshit, I can't even fathom. . . ._

When he finally got home the sun was high in the sky, and Magenta was curled into her top bunk. _And_ w _hat am I going to do about you?_ He thought to her. _I wanted to be an astrobiologist, I wanted to study the life on other planets, but what about you? You're not doing well in school, you're not even trying, you're failing at life and you don't even care. . . ._

 _I just got denied to the one school I wanted to go to and I'm worried about you. Because I love you._ A few more angry tears slipped out of his eyes. _I love you so much, you don't even realize. . . . I didn't even realize._

He crawled into his bed and stared at the bunk above him, almost as if he could see through it to his sister's sleeping form.

 _I don't know how it started or why it took me so long to see it, but you're the one person that I need in my life. You're everything to me, and you're so hurt and so broken and you shut me out years ago for some reason that you won't tell me and you just won't fucking let me in. . . ._

"Please, Genta," he whispered. "Please just let me back in."

His sister's gentle snores were the only answer he got.

* * *

Exactly two months later. Perhaps the most life-changing day in the siblings' entire existence.

It started off normally. They both got up early. Riff Raff put on a bit of makeup in the bathroom; Magenta waited outside for her turn, her face having been returned to normal. No more bruises. . . . but a bit of light redness. She was still hitting, and though Riff Raff had tried to speak to her several times over it, she hadn't been very responsive.

She tapped her foot a bit impatiently, just slightly irritated that he was taking so long. Their relationship had been somewhat. . . . better? She guessed she could call it better. Since the incident with De Lordy - who had returned to school with a white cane and dark glasses, popular as ever with his beast-attack story - they had started talking to each other a bit more. Civil, distant talk, but talk. He seemed to be putting in more effort to be kind to her, since he and Pearl had broken up.

 _And thank the Queen for that_ , Magenta thought. No more seeing her brother caught up in Pearl's sickly sweetness.

No more of her brother, in a few months.

He hadn't mentioned Strangelove University, but she knew he'd gotten in. How couldn't he have? He was too brilliant not to take in. And he'd leave her, alone with Father, alone in her friendless world, until one day he'd get a call from someone saying that, sorry for your loss, Magenta Vitus had committed suicide. And oh, he would get that call, eventually. She had no plan of how she would do it, but she knew she would. This life simply wasn't worth living anymore.

But a few more months of having him around. . . . She could wait, just for those months.

 _There you go again, you nasty whore, with your fucking -_

She smacked her face hard, and suddenly Riff Raff was there beside her, his eyes hard.

"Stop doing that," he said. "Why are you doing that?"

"None of your business," she said.

"Magenta, it's not healthy -"

"Of course it's not healthy, I'm not stupid enough to think it is," she snapped. "I don't do it because of health benefits."

"Why do you do it?"

"I already told you, it's not your business." She weaseled her way past him and into the bathroom. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do my makeup."

Riff Raff was gazing at her the entire time she painted her face, and she pointedly ignored him. Finally, he spoke. "I'm always here for you to talk to. To vent to. You know that, don't you?"

A flash of anger made her head feel hot. "No, you're not," she snapped, throwing down a makeup brush and turning to glare at him. "You're not there. You're too busy with school and with your stupid chemistry club. You don't want to hear me talk about my shit, because you know what? It's shit that you can't handle. I've told you before, you would fucking _hate_ me -"

"And I've told you before, no, I wouldn't." He moved into the bathroom and shut the door. "I'm. . . ." he seemed to struggle with his next words. "I'm your big brother. I know I haven't been there for you this past year, but -"

She almost felt the tears welling up in her eyes again. _Yes, I know you're my big brother. That's the whole damn problem._

"But that won't change now," she snapped. "Because you're going off to some fancy college and fucking leaving me here all alone."

"No, I'm not."

This caught her off guard. "What?"

"I'm not going to Strangelove," he said. A pained look came into his eyes, but he continued. "I didn't get accepted."

"What? How could they not. . . . You're not. . . . Going?" Magenta felt the relief practically drown her. _He's not going? He's not leaving me?_

"No," he said. "I got my rejection letter two months ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

His eyebrow quirked up. " _You_ don't exactly tell _me_ everything, you know."

She was almost dizzy. . . . No, she _was_ dizzy. _He's not leaving me. He's staying with me. He's staying. . . ._

"Genta," he said quietly. She hadn't heard him call her that in years. "You're shaking."

"I. . . ." She almost felt like laughing. _One less reason to kill myself, though there are plenty of others._

"Genta," he said again. She realized that his hands were on her arms, holding her steady. _No, don't touch me, I can't take that, I won't be able to control myself. . . ._

"Please," he said. "Please tell me what's going on with you. I want to help. I won't hate you, I promise, and I know I've fucked up a lot in these past few years, but I want to get better. . . . I want us to be okay again."

 _I can't take this. I can't._ He was so close. His beautiful blue eyes, reminding her so much of ice, staring right into hers. His blonde hair long and soft looking. His expression gentle, loving, his hands so warm on her arms. . . .

 _Riff Raff. . . ._

Her lips were on his before she even knew what she was doing.

* * *

He didn't immediately comprehend what was happening at first. He knew that she was too pale, and looking like she was about to pass out. He'd taken her arms, trying to hold her up, and began to quietly plead with her to let him back in, let him see what was going on in that tormented head.

Then she closed the gap between them with a kiss.

He froze up. His hands were still on her arms, but hers were on his chest, and the warmth of her lips was suddenly the most intense feeling he'd ever had.

 _She's kissing me. Magenta is kissing me. What do I do? What the hell do I -?_

 _Kiss her back, idiot._

Before he could, she suddenly wrenched herself away from him. If he'd thought she looked pale before, she looked absolutely colorless now. Her green eyes bulged, her mouth open and closed like a fish's, and she let out a low moan.

"I. . . ." she said. The terror in her face made him want to pull her close and tell her it would all be alright, but she suddenly barged her way past him and out of the bathroom.

Riff Raff stood there, stunned for a long moment, before he turned and ran out the bathroom after her. He got to the living room - the front door was wide open - he ran to it and looked out -

He saw a flash of her red hair in the distance, sprinting away from him. Running away again. Trying to shut him out again.

He broke into the fastest run he'd ever had in his life. Not this time. He wouldn't let her go this time.

* * *

When Riff Raff finally found his sister, she was on the beach. The same beach they used to visit together all those years ago, before she'd started to pull away.

 _I can't. Because you'll hate me even more if I tell you. Riff Raff, just trust me on this. . . . I can't tell anyone, especially not you._

She'd kissed him. He had a feeling, he dared to hope. . . . Maybe he knew what she'd meant. Maybe the reason she'd started to shut him out in the first place. . . .

Magenta stood alone, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, shivering a bit. She was wearing nothing but her favorite sheer wrap-around and her underwear beneath it. Not unusual attire for a Transylvanian, but still, it was far too cold out for that. The full moon cast a bit of silvery light on her, making her look even more like an angel than she usually did. Her fiery hair waved a bit in the breeze, her skin looked almost glowing white.

Riff Raff couldn't believe he hadn't realized sooner that she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

"Magenta," he said. She turned to look at him, and the pretty green gems that were her eyes widened a bit in fear.

"Riff Raff. . . ." she said. "I. . . . I'm sorry." She turned to him fully. "I didn't. . . . I was just relieved, and I got caught up in the moment -"

"Magenta, is this why you've been pulling away from me?" He said, looking at her intensely.

There they were again, the tears. Just barely sparkling in the moonlight. She muttered "fuck" and raised her hand, ready to strike the tears away, but he grabbed her wrist.

"Don't," he said. "Please don't. Just tell me."

The tears didn't go away this time. She stared at him, looking so pained that he wanted to crush her into a hug right then, but he knew he couldn't just yet.

"Yes," she whispered. There it was: a single clear teardrop making its way down her cheek. "That's. . . . that's why. I - I -"

He didn't let her go on. He kissed her instead.

She went stiff for a second, and then one hand was gripping the front of his shirt, the other one in his hair, and she kissed him back fiercely. Her mouth was warm, and she tasted of toothpaste and cherry lipstick. He wanted to kiss her more, wanted to stay here forever. Her lips were like the finest wine and he needed to get drunk. . . . But he pulled away, breathing in deep, shaky breaths. She looked dazed and in shock, and when her eyes refocused on him, he said it. The three little words that he'd never told anybody else in his life.

"I love you."

A few more tears slipped out. He hadn't seen her cry since she was five, but here she was, makeup running a bit, eyes shining. She shook in his arms, and she whispered back, "I love you, too."

Here she kissed him, and he gave himself completely over to the hunger, kissing her back with a need that he'd never felt before in his life. He felt her cheeks soon grow very wet with tears, tears that she'd refused to shed for years, now breaking free like a dam had been shattered. Eventually he had to stop kissing her, because she was sobbing, and she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face into his shoulder. He held her warm body tight against him. _My Genta. My angel. My sister._

 _My love._


	9. Love Somebody

Ahh, yes. The chapter that we've all been waiting for.

The smut.

Warning for some mild bloodplay. Not going to lie, writing some of this made me feel like a filthy sinner, but it was certainly more interesting than vanilla sex. And let's be honest, it's the RHPS fandom. We're all filthy sinners.

RHPS belongs to the guy who played Riff Raff in the movie.

* * *

 **Chapter 9: Love Somebody**

 _When they got home, they enjoyed a standard evening: dinner, a bit of television, cuddling their tiny daughter, putting her to bed. . . ._

 _. . . . their legs slapping against one another, their mouths assaulting each other with violent kisses, their hands gripping and squeezing everything they could. Neither of them had felt much like penetration today, so they'd instead stripped away everything but their underwear and had wedged a very large vibrator between them, thrusting against it, Riff Raff pinning her down and Magenta arching her back as she moved her hips. The vibrations rocketed through their bodies, and Riff Raff bit hard into Magenta's neck as he came, drawing out a bit of blood. She gasped in pain, but the bite only seemed to make her thrusts more frantic, and soon she was coming, as well._

 _He collapsed to the side of her, the vibrator falling out from between them, stopping against Magenta's thigh. Riff Raff reached down to turn it off, and she let out another little sigh of need as his fingers brushed her leg. They were on the living room floor, their clothing in heaps around them; they'd both been in too much of a frenzy to make their way to the bedroom, and they kept their toys in various places around the apartment for that reason._

 _"Want a second round, do you?" He said, pausing to stroke her skin._

 _"I would like one, yes."_

 _"Well, I'm a bit limp at the moment, so I guess I'll just have too. . . ." he picked up the still-going vibrator and ran it along her inner thigh, earning a moan from Magenta. He chuckled. ". . . . use my hands."_

 _He sat up and slid the vibrator against her panties, and she bucked her hips against it. He pulled away. "Now, now," he said. "Patience is a virtue, my love. I'm planning on taking my time."_

 _"Well, we both know I'm not a patient person," Magenta growled, and she went to grab the vibrator from his hand. He held it out of her reach, his grin widening._

 _"Oh no. But you'll learn."_

 _"Prick," she said, before leaning back again and letting him run the tip of the toy just above the waistband of her panties. With a long sigh, she murmured, "You know, all our talk today about memories. . . . It makes me remember the first time we ever -_ ahhh _. . . ."_

 _The vibrator was on her now, right in the dent where her entrance was, and she almost thrust her hips against it again. But she knew better than to do that, lest her asshole of a brother pull it away from her again._

 _"Oh yes, I remember that," Riff Raff said, but Magenta was no longer listening, because he was running the vibrator up and down along her slit. "It was a pretty good day, I'd say. . . ."_

* * *

She sat on the couch, enjoying a cigarette and waiting for her brother to get home from work. Riff Raff had graduated from upper school six months ago, and had gotten a job as a handyman for a rich family soon after that. No college for him, unfortunately, but he seemed to be doing alright, as far as making money went.

Magenta was doing alright, too. Her grades had improved a little; she was still testing below average, but she was no longer failing any subjects. She still had no friends, but she'd stopped selling sex for money. She still had to hear about how great Marvel De Lordy was from the people around town, but she didn't have to see him at school anymore, now that he'd graduated.

She was still hitting herself. Still smoking and drinking too much. Still going out for random sex with random people, whenever she and Riff Raff got into arguments. She and Riff Raff still _got_ into a lot of arguments, because she was still learning to not shut him out.

But it was better. It was better, because he loved her.

It was a very slow burn, but they were rebuilding their broken relationship. He had the glue, she had the pieces, and they were putting it back together, bit by bit. He never got too angry at her, even when she came home slightly bruised from a fuck with a stranger. He told her, every morning before he left and every night before they went to sleep in their separate bunks, that he loved her.

She had previously been tortured by the thought that he would hate her; now she was being slightly gnawed at by guilt that she didn't deserve someone so amazing as her brother. But every time he came home and greeted her with a smile and a gentle peck on the lips. . . . It all went away for a while.

Though she still wasn't sure what their relationship status could be called. Dating? Going out? Being involved? An affair? Seeing each other? They hadn't really discussed it, despite a lot of their free time spent cuddling as the television droned, his hands gently rubbing her back or shoulders, asking unassuming questions about how she was feeling that day.

The door opened and he walked in, looking a bit disgruntled, dirt on his hands and sweat on his forehead. He'd cut off a lot of his waist-length hair so that it was to his shoulders now. He didn't apply as much makeup anymore, instead only a swipe of eyeshadow and some liner. "Hello, Genta," he said with a small smile, going to the kitchen to wash his hands before disappearing into their bedroom to change his clothes.

When he came back out, she almost choked on her cigarette; pants, nothing but a long pair of pants, his chest bare and exposed. His body was a bit thin, but lean from his work. She felt a flush rise to her face, and turned away, putting out her cigarette and curling up a bit tighter in her blankets.

Riff Raff walked her way and bent down, kissing her on the cheek before moving to sit next to her. He smelt of sweat and a light spritz of perfume, and something about that was enough to make her want to lean into him and breathe in nothing but that scent. So she did; she readjusted herself so that her bare cheek was against his chest, and he rested an arm around her. And they lay like that for a long while, the television droning on.

Finally, she said, "Riff Raff?"

"Hmm?"

She leaned up and looked at him straight in the eye. "Come here."

She kissed him then, on his lips, and she felt his hands wander up and down her back, his throat letting out a small moan in desire. Magenta slid one hand over the side of his bare torso, flicking her tongue against his bottom lip, and he opened up, kissing her more fiercely, more passionately, until he had to pull away to gasp for breath.

"Magenta," he said her name in a raspy voice, "I need. . . ."

"What do you need?"

"I need to go to the bathroom."

And then he got up and left her on the couch, feeling a bit dazed and a lot annoyed.

* * *

Riff Raff let out a few long, shaky breaths as he stood in the bathroom. _Why the fuck did I. . . ?_

He'd decided to go without a shirt initially because he felt a bit hot. He hadn't even thought about how Magenta would react, how she might kiss him, start touching him, and how her body might feel pressed against his bare chest. He wanted her, there was no doubt about that. He lusted for her; when he was sure she was asleep at night, he would touch himself to thoughts of her face, her breasts, her lips, her legs. . . . But to actually do it. . . .

To actually do it would mean to fully commit incest. They'd been tiptoeing it, with their kisses, their daily declarations of love, their cuddles. But to completely give his body over to his sister. . . . Was he ready to do that? Would it change anything in their current relationship? Would it end up being a one-off thing? Would it -

There was a knock on the door. "Riff Raff?"

He opened it. "Yes, Mag - ?" He almost choked.

She stood there completely naked. Her body. . . . Curvy, soft looking, her breasts full, her hips round, her thighs thick, her face determined

He stuttered for a good few moments, his eyes trying to memorize every last bit of her. And then he finally managed to form a full sentence: "Magenta, what are you doing?"

She took a deep breath and spoke. "I want you. I want to have you. I have for years, and I'm ready for it. I. . . ." she trailed off a bit and looked away. "I need to know that you want me, too."

"Yes," Riff Raff said, his breathing harsh, "more than anything, but what if. . . . Magenta, what if we get caught or something? This. . . . This is incest, what we're doing, and if we -"

"Yes, I know," she leaned against the doorframe. "I know it's incest, that's the whole reason I was pulling away from you for so long. Because you're my brother. But I still need you." Her eyes were filled with such determination it was almost frightening. "I'm done fighting it. I'm done with running away from you. I know we're siblings, and I don't fucking care anymore. I love you. I'm in love with you, and I'm done feeling guilty and hating myself for it. When I'm out there, fucking people I don't know, I'm always pretending it's you. I'm so fucking _done_ with that, Riff Raff. I want the real thing. I want _you_."

"Genta. . . ."

"Please," she said, and then she was in the bathroom and kissing him again, her bare breasts on his chest, her teeth catching his lips, and he was kissing her back, his head getting so light and dizzy that he almost didn't register when she whispered " _I want to fuck you,_ " against his breath.

Then he was against the bathroom wall, her hands pinning his arms there, her teeth tickling his ear as she whispered, "You always think I'm asleep, but I hear you, all those nights, I hear you whispering my name while you get yourself off. Do you know how hot that gets me? To listen to you when you think I can't hear a thing? It makes me want to climb down to your bunk and ride you until you can't speak."

Her tongue lashed at his neck, right where his pulse was throbbing, and she bit him, hard enough that he knew he would bleed. He let out a groan of pleasure and pain as she kissed the wound, and he tasted a bit of his own blood when her lips crashed back against his.

Riff Raff's hands twitched outwards, longing to touch her, but she held them firmly against the wall. Her head traveled lower, pausing at the base of his neck to suck on it, before moving his arms so that they were around her, his hands directly on her ass. He squeezed.

"Bedroom?" Came her voice quietly, and he looked down to see that she was gazing up at him, a small smirk on her red lips.

"Yes."

So she turned around, one of her hands twined with his, and lead him into their shared room, to his bottom bunk. He was hard, and when she turned to undo his pants, he practically burst out. He moved to push her onto her back, but she put a hand to his chest to stop him. "No," she whispered. "I want to be on top today. You can top me next time, love."

Next time. There would be a next time, he realized.

He got on the bed and lay on his back, and she got on her hands and knees above him, leaning down and kissing him with an intensity that he wasn't prepared for. He put his hands on her sides, her hips, her breasts, fuck, she was so soft, but her kisses felt like fire. . . .

Magenta's mouth traveled to his neck, to the place where she'd given him a blood-drawing bite. She slid her tongue along the wound, and he hissed in pain, but he wanted her to do it again, to bite him again. . . .

"Fuck, Magenta," Riff Raff panted.

"Hmmm?"

"Do it again. Make me bleed again."

"Whatever you say, Riff. . . ."

So she attacked him with her teeth again, and soon his neck was dripping scarlet, and she was cleaning him with her tongue. He groaned, and found himself wondering what her own blood would taste like.

"Magenta?"

"Yes?" She pulled back so that she was straddling his hips. He wasn't inside of her yet, but he was being rubbed between her ass.

"Can I. . . ?" He reached up and stroked her neck with his fingers.

She froze, a look of sudden terror coming into her eyes. Her face paled, and he immediately realized that he'd done something wrong. She reached up and smacked his hand away from her neck. "No," she said, her voice harsh and raspy.

"Genta," he said, his arousal suddenly replaced with concern. "Tell me what I did wrong."

She took a few long, shuddery breaths before muttering, "Don't touch my neck. Not with your hands. Your mouth, your arms, that's all fine, but not with your hands. It's. . . ." Her hands bunched into fists on his chest. "When Father. . . . And De Lordy. . . . They squeezed my neck. . ."

Riff Raff gripped her biceps. "Magenta, maybe we should stop -"

" _No,_ " she said it again with even more harshness, and she leaned down so that her throat was directly above his mouth, her pulse almost tangible in the centimeters between them. "Bite me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I want you to do it. Just. . . . Just don't touch it with your hands."

With some hesitation, he obeyed her and nipped into her neck. Not hard enough to draw blood, so when she growled out " _Harder,_ " he did it again, and this time he could taste her ichor on his lips. A coppery taste, a bit salty. . . . His arousal was back, and he was suddenly very aware that she was moving her hips so that he was directly below her entrance -

"More, Riff Raff."

When he obeyed to her satisfaction, she sunk herself onto him.

Riff Raff moaned into his angel's now bloody neck, and she leaned back so that he had a clear view of her. Almost towering over him, small trails of scarlet running from the tiny wounds on her throat and over her breasts. Red blood, red hair, red lips, white skin, black lashes, green eyes. She moved so that her hands were on his shoulders, and she began to thrust her hips forward, sending waves of heat from his groin all the way through to his head and toes. She thrust again, and again, and soon his head was swimming in pleasure, his hands on her waist and his face getting flecked with her sweat.

So close. . . . Almost there. . . .

"Riff Raff."

"Magenta," he gasped out.

Her skin had turned from white to pink, and he realized she was over the edge. "I love you," she said, her voice rough. She began to say it like a religious chant. " _I love you, I love you. . . ._ "

He managed to moan out one response - "I love you too" - before she sent him into oblivion.

* * *

"I didn't know I could love somebody this much."

Magenta said it from her place next to him in his bed. She was on her back, her arm curled into a pillow for his head, and he was on his side next to her.

"I didn't either," he said. He ran his fingers over her upper chest, but didn't once touch her neck. The wounds had been cleaned, and they had changed into their pajamas. When Magenta crawled into Riff Raff's bed instead of her own, he didn't object. "To be honest, I didn't think I could like sex so much."

She looked at him questioningly. "I thought you and Pearl - ?"

"We did, but it wasn't like this. Not nearly as intense. Not as," he kissed her shoulder, "erotic."

A grin spread across her face. "Oh my. Riff Raff, are you saying I'm better in bed than Pearl Starlite?"

"That is the most basic form of what I'm saying."

"I appreciate this compliment greatly," she teased, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead. "And let me tell you, Riffy, that the real thing is _so_ much better than all my half-baked fantasies."

"Good," he said. He shifted so that he was sitting up, and she looked at him questioningly.

"Do you remember," he said, "that action I taught you all those years ago? The Brachorea?"

She tried to, and a vague image came to her mind. "That elbow thing?"

Riff Raff nodded, and he gently pulled her up. He tucked his arms back, flattening his hands, and she did the same thing. Their fingers slid together, up, up until it was just their elbows touching, and then they broke apart.

Magenta gazed at him. "It feels so. . . . Personal. Like such an intimate thing."

"I believe I told you that it is reserved for two people who are more important to each other than anybody else." He took her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. "You are still what is most important to me. This will never change, my angel. I hope you know that."

She continued to stare at him, and then she took his face into her hands and kissed him hard. He gripped her wrists gently before moving his hands to her shoulders, pushing her down so that she was on her back again and he was hovering above her. When they finally pulled away from their kiss, he smirked just a bit.

"You said I could top next time. Can this be next time?"

Magenta hit him playfully in the chest. "Well, if you _really_ want to. . . ."

And soon they were entwined in each others' bodies again, moaning each others' names, before falling asleep curled around one another, their bodies all the warmth they needed.


	10. I Know Places

Daaaamn, I actually thought that I posted this chapter before I went to bed. Turns out I didn't, which would explain why it didn't show up on my profile, ha ha. But, here it is. After the last smutty chapter, we'll get one that is much more serious. Still a bit of smut, near the beginning, because RHPS is all about the smut.

Also the first appearance of what will become a very big problem for our dear Riff Raff.

RHPS is the property of Richard O'Brien.

* * *

 **Chapter 10: I Know Places**

 _When Magenta was finally satisfied - so, about seven orgasms later - they were both exhausted enough that they considered going to sleep right there on the living room floor, tangled up in each other and bathing in the afterglow of their lovemaking session. Unfortunately, Sienna had other plans._

 _The baby started to cry, and Magenta muttered a few curses and got up to go into their room, where Sienna lay in her bassinet. Cooing gently at the child, she lifted her to her breast, giving her more milk as she lay down in her and Riff Raff's bed. Riff Raff slid into the room, standing to watch his sister and daughter and feeling nothing but a rush of affection._

 _When the baby had been fed and burped - no spitting up this time - Riff Raff went to pick her up and lay her back down on her tiny mattress. He adjusted the blankets around her a bit before crawling into bed next to Magenta, turning to spoon her. She stroked his arm gently, and he murmured, "Do you remember when we had to leave home?"_

 _"Mmm?" She was half asleep._

 _"I remember it plenty," he whispered into her ear._

 _"Why don't you relay it to me?" Magenta said, her eyes fluttering a bit. "I could use a bedtime story."_

 _He chuckled and kissed the side of her jaw, her loose hair tickling his face. "It's not the greatest story, but it's a story, none the less."_

* * *

It had been a regular morning in the Vitus apartment - well, nearly regular.

Riff Raff had gotten up early to pull on clothes and take care of his essentials. He still worked as a handyman, but he was planning on looking for another job today, and he had to look a bit more put together than usual. No shift this morning, so he put on a long black dress and did his makeup, feeling grateful that he had a reason to do more than just his eyes after so long.

After leaving the bathroom with his face fully painted, he figured it was time to wake up his sister. She was asleep in his bed - she'd long ago abandoned her top bunk - on her stomach, the blankets covering everything below her waist, her bare back exposed. She was nineteen now, about to graduate upper school in a month or so. Graduate, and with average grades. Didn't sound that big to anyone else, but to anyone who knew of how she'd struggled during the past few years, it was huge.

 **She would be dead now if you'd have gone to Strangelove.**

The voice was sudden and came out of nowhere. It was loud enough that it could've been someone standing right next to him, but it sounded like it was coming from the back of his skull. He jumped and spun around, looking for the source.

Nothing. No one was there. He blinked in confusion. _What was. . . ?_

Riff Raff shook his head and walked over to run a finger down Magenta's spine. A slight shiver. She was awake. "Genta," he said, his voice teasing.

"Mmmmm," came the response.

"Time to wake up, my love."

"No, it's not," came her muffled voice. She reached out an arm and tapped the alarm clock next to their bed with a fingernail. "I have six more minutes. I fully intend to use them."

"So do I," Riff Raff growled, and he leaned down and flipped her so that she was on her back. A small " _eeek_ " came from her throat, and she blinked up at him, her eyes a bit bleary. He moved so that he was on top of her, straddling her hips, a playful smile on his face.

"Riff. . . ." she whined in protest, even though her hands went straight up under his skirt to stroke his fishnet-clad legs. "Come on, I need sleep. Don't you know how little sleep I've been getting, with you all over me all the time?"

"You say that like I'm the only one at fault," Riff Raff said. "Half the time, I believe it's _you_ who can't keep your hands off of _me_." He leaned down and kissed her hard, feeling her hands move themselves to his chest, until he pulled back with an even bigger grin. "And by the way, your morning breath is horrible," he teased.

She snorted, but then gave him a look that could only be described as pure seductiveness. "Well," she said, "if you're too repulsed to kiss the lips on my face. . . ."

". . . . then perhaps I could put my mouth to use somewhere else," he said. And then, after an agonizing three minutes of teasing and taunting, his tongue was sliding along the wet folds of skin between her legs, and she was holding onto his hair as if it was a lifeline. Every movement of his mouth drew a gasp, a moan, a shiver, a sigh, a murmur of his name. . . .

The door slammed open.

Father was standing there. His face glowed red, veins were bulging in his neck, his flashing eyes positively livid as he stared at them. Riff Raff wrenched his head up so fast that he almost hit the top of the bunk bed, and he felt the blood drain out of his face when he saw his father. Magenta's eyes snapped open, turning to look to the doorway and hissing a bit when she saw who was there.

When Father spoke, his voice was eerily calm. "What's going on in here?"

Silence. Riff Raff opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Magenta only stared at her father, seeming to not realize that she was completely naked in front of him. Father's stare shifted between them, and when he spoke again, he was yelling.

" _I said what the fuck is going on in here?!_ " He stormed into the room and suddenly grabbed Riff Raff by the neck. Yanking his son off of the bed, he slammed him into the floor. Magenta bolted up and aimed a punch at his back, but Father turned once and backhanded her sharply across the face, knocking her away.

"What the hell were you doing?" He snapped, turning back to face the choking Riff Raff. "What have you been doing? What the fuck is wrong with you? _You're fucking your own sister, you piece of shit_ -"

He was cut off as he buckled a bit, Magenta having returned to land a kick in the back of his knee. Father let go of Riff Raff, turning to Magenta and grabbing a handful of her hair, pulling her down onto the floor to meet his eyes.

"And you, you filthy slut, I bet you talked him into it, I bet you would've done the same shit to me!"

Magenta's hands shot up to claw at his face, trying to get him to let her go, but he talked through her assault. "You think I don't notice? You think I'm that much of an idiot as to not _notice_ that your door is locked every day? That I don't _hear_ you in there when you're supposed to be asleep? That I can't _see_ you two giving each other those looks?" He threw her to the floor. "Eye fucking each other all the time, have you been eye fucking me, too, whore? Is fucking your family what gets you off -"

Riff Raff was behind him, his arm around Father's throat, cutting him off, choking him. Father's hands flew up to grip Riff Raff's elbow and wrist, pulling them away, almost succeeding -

Father suddenly flipped himself over so that they were both on their backs, Riff Raff being pinned under him. In the brief moment that Riff Raff's arm was knocked loose, Father broke free and scrambled up, breathing heavily as he stared at his son and daughter on the floor. The deep red in his face turned to a blotchy purple when Magenta moved so that she was between him and Riff Raff, shielding her brother.

When he spoke again, the cold calm was back. "I want you out of this house. Both of you. I didn't want either of you in the first place, and you're insane if you think I'm going to put up with this. . . ." he flailed his hands, trying to come up with the words. "This _abomination._ "

He turned and exited the room, leaving the siblings sitting still for a moment, before immediately turning to check each other for injuries. Nothing broken, no scrapes, no bruises, but their hands were shaking worse than an earthquake.

* * *

They had their essentials packed within ten minutes. Hairbrush, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, a small bottle of shampoo, tampons, birth control, money, changes of clothes for each of them. . . . Riff Raff had a large old suitcase in the back of the closet from when he'd once left for three days to tour Strangelove, and Magenta had emptied out their old school bags to carry anything extra.

They filled their bags until there was no space left, Magenta stuffing the very last corner of the suitcase with the benzodiazepines she was prescribed a year ago for her flashbacks. She rarely took them, but Riff Raff had insisted, just in case something happened. . . . In case her neck was touched by a hand, or a room suddenly got dark enough to remind her of the pantry. . . .

With Magenta fully dressed and carrying the book bags and Riff Raff holding the suitcase handle, they made their way out of the bedroom. The air of silence hovered between them, and it only got heavier when they saw Father, still having not left for work, staring at them with such hate and revulsion that it almost hurt.

He stood by the door, holding it open. Riff Raff walked out in front, and when he reached back to hold Magenta's hand, Father let out an almost demonic growl. "Sick fucks," he said. "I've spawned a pair of sick fucks."

The siblings said nothing, only squeezed their hands tighter, Riff Raff leading the way out. As soon as Magenta was through the door, Vandal Vitus hissed "And don't ever come back," before slamming it closed behind them. The click of the lock seemed disproportionately loud as it shut them out of their old home forever.

* * *

They started walking out of the parking lot, and Magenta was the first to speak. "What are we going to do?"

Riff Raff clenched her hand almost painfully and said, "Get on the bus. Go to the bank and withdraw all my money. And then. . . ." He trailed off.

Magenta thought for a moment before saying, "We could leave town. We could just get on another bus and go somewhere. Anywhere. I know places around the country that are well-known for their care of the homeless -"

She cut herself off as the word weighed itself in her mind. Homeless. They were homeless.

"What about my job? It's our only source of money right now." He grunted a bit in frustration. "I don't have anything else but the bare necessities."

"You have me." She said, her voice fierce.

"I consider you a bare necessity."

She let out a long sigh before muttering, "I could. . . . I could start selling sex for money again. I don't know how to do anything else -"

"No," Riff Raff said, and now it was he who was fierce. "You could be a cashier. Or a waitress. Or a maid. But I don't want. . . ."

Silence. Soon they were at the nearest bus stop, then on the bus, then at the bank, then out on the road again. With nothing else to do, they ended up sitting on the steps of the city hall, staring into the distance and not talking for a good while.

And then Magenta said, "Have you ever heard much about the Capital?"

He blinked himself out of his reverie and turned to her. "The Capital? Of Caligari?"

Caligari was a whole other country, a good twelve hours away on bus. It was famous for being the center of everything in the planet Transsexual; trade, wealth, culture, politics. The Capital - it seemed to have no other name - was a bustling metropolis of riches and wonders, if what they saw on television was anything to go by. The Great and Fabulous Furter family themselves lived there, their home a golden castle at the heart of the city.

It was also, Magenta told her brother, a popular site for people looking to start over with a new life. Jobs everywhere, good apartments for sale, a lot of extra money to go around. . . .

Riff Raff said, "We'd have to get over the border to Caligari first. And then spend a good amount of time getting to the Capital. What if it's not really worth it?"

"It's got a reputation for being a place where people go when they're looking for better lives. And. . . ." she trailed off a bit, and looked him hard in the eyes. "And it's probably the most tolerant place on the entire planet. We could pretend to just be like any other couple, but if anyone ever found out. . . . The consequences wouldn't be nearly as bad as they would here in Aldous. I've heard that it's where a lot of incestuous couples go, when they've been rejected by their families. It might be the best option for us, Riff Raff. It's. . . . It's something."

* * *

The next night, when they were on the bus that would take them to the Orwell/Caligari border, Riff Raff heard it again.

He had the window seat, staring out at a long blue forest that stretched out around the street. The moon was a crescent, smiling mockingly at him. His sister was taking a nap in the seat next to him, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her, their bags on the bus racks above them.

 **She's dead. You're holding a dead woman.**

It was the moon that was talking to him, its white teeth flashing as it giggled. He blinked, and the moon went back to normal. But the voice spoke again.

 **Your precious Genta is dead. Died in her sleep.**

He believed it.

When he looked back on this moment, he was confused as to _why_ he believed it so instantaneously, but he did. A cold fear gripped his heart, and he was absolutely convinced that Magenta was dead next to him. His head snapped over to her, and in the dimness of the bus's light bulb, her skin was washed out and sallow, her eyes sunken in, her lips blue. There was no movement of her chest to indicate breathing, and she felt so cold. . . .

"Magenta!"

Riff Raff turned to grip her by both shoulders, and she snapped her eyes open. Her pretty green eyes, so dry and lifeless.

" _Magenta!_ " He almost shook her, no, she wasn't dead, she couldn't be, not his angel, his love, his darling, _oh fuck please no -_

"Riff Raff!" She was gripping him back. . . . Alive. Clearly alive. Breathing. Her pulse was tangible through his fingers. And her eyes were wide with confusion. "Riff Raff, what the hell? Are you alright? Did something happen - ?"

She cut herself off when she saw that he was crying. The tears made their way freely down his cheeks, and he almost crushed her in a hug. Not dead. Alive. So convinced, he'd been so convinced -

"Riff," Magenta's voice was much gentler now, and she'd wrapped her arms around his neck and was holding him close. "What is it? What happened, love?"

He said nothing. Only continued to cry in relief that the moon had been wrong.

* * *

It was dusk of the next day, and they were ready to act.

There were long lines, endless lines, of people passing through the two countries. The bus had dropped them off a town away from it, and they'd spent their day planning their crossing of the border. They'd talked about it briefly before, thought it was now that they were coming up with their complete strategy. They had no one to contact on the other side, no family or friends, but they didn't need to; they were ready.

Tentatively, Magenta brought up Riff Raff's breakdown the previous night, but he'd shrugged it off and said it was a result of the stress of getting kicked out of their home. At the time he told her this, that was genuinely what he believed it to be. . . . Even though he remembered that single voice the night they'd left, and felt twinges of doubt.

The sky was a soft yellow and getting darker, a few stars piercing through, the moon absent. They made their way through the trees, toward Lake Crystalline, one of the biggest lakes in the world. . . . And on the other side was Caligari. They found what they expected: motorboats, lined up on the shore. A rental company, loaning out the boats for leisure to those who could afford it. The employees' sales pitches could be heard even from the siblings' spot in the forest, with a lot of people around to be distracting. Riff Raff had enough money on him to pay for an hour of motorboating, but he was inwardly worried that the employees might see all their bags and get a bit suspicious. So, just in case, he'd brushed up a bit on his hotwiring skills.

Lake Crystalline was shaped like a boomerang, and they were on the tip of it. Steal a boat, get to the inner curve of the boomerang, where there was much less border patrol, and then run. Run as fast as they could, without getting shot at. Shield Magenta's body with his own, if he needed to.

"Ready?" She asked.

"Let's go."

They moved to walk out of the forest, and bumped into someone immediately.

* * *

"Hey, watch where you're going!"

Magenta almost snapped back at the man she'd run into, but the other man next to him grabbed his forearm and hissed out a reprimand. The two were crouched low, their bodies dirty, their faces rough and similar in appearance. Black hair, bright blue eyes, tanned skin, straight noses, full lips. They were looking up at her and her brother from a spot behind the bushes, one annoyed, the other a bit scared.

"Sorry," Riff Raff said in a hushed tone, pulling her back and putting himself between them. "My sister, she wasn't looking where she was going. . . ."

The one still looked annoyed, but the other perked up a bit. "Your sister?"

Riff Raff nodded warily. From her place behind him, Magenta caught the eye of the man who spoke. His next statement was directed at her. "You two headed for the Capital?"

She nodded, and this man gently slapped the other on the shoulder. "Cool yourself, Hawthorne. They're like us."

"How do you know?" The other man, Hawthorne, spoke. "She could be lying. They could be spies."

"We don't want any trouble," Riff Raff said, backing away slowly with Magenta pressed behind him. "We'll leave to attend to our own business."

"Oh no you don't! They're going to tell someone that we're out here, Sherwood, they'll alert the authorities, we'll be shot dead if Grandfather finds us -"

"But he won't," Sherwood said, running his fingers gently along Hawthorne's back, and Magenta suddenly realized what he'd meant by " _they're like us_." "Grandfather won't ever find us, sweetheart. Neither will my parents, or yours. Tell me," Sherwood stood up and locked eyes with Riff Raff, "how long have you two been icebound?"

Magenta was confused at this question, but Riff Raff answered after some hesitation. "About three years," he said. Three years; the amount of time they'd been together.

Sherwood nodded. "Been four and a half, for us. You'll have to forgive Hawthorne; he doesn't trust easily."

"Not like I have reason to," Hawthorne muttered.

"Your sister, huh? Full, half, adopted, step?" Sherwood said to Riff Raff.

"Full."

"Damn, you have good reason to want to leave Orwell. Hawthorne and I," he motioned his head toward his companion, "are first cousins. Parents never knew about it, but Grandfather found out and lost his shit. So we ran for it." He approached them a bit more, pausing just outside of their comfort zone. "Anyone waiting for you on the other side?"

"No. No one."

"Listen," Sherwood said, after a look of consideration. "I have an old friend waiting to transport us to the Capital once we get to Caligari. Ze should be on the other side with zir van. It's dangerous out there on your own. Do you two need - ?"

"No!" Hawthorne bolted up, his eyes flashing with suspicion. "You'll get us in trouble, Sherwood, how do we really know that they're like us?"

"He answered the icebound question. That's good enough for me," Sherwood said, his jaw set. "Now, do you two need transportation? To the Capital?"

At this, Riff Raff looked back at Magenta, his eyes asking her for her opinion. She gave a slight nod.

"We'd appreciate it, yes," he said, and soon (with some grumbles of protest from Hawthorne) the four were making their way down to the shore of the bank.

As expected, the employee they approached looked highly suspicious when they asked for a motorboat for an hour. Didn't take much to get him to agree to it, though; all Magenta had to do was bat her eyelashes a little and he melted. The four of them were soon in a boat, with Sherwood manning the steering wheel, pulling farther and farther from the shore. . . .

Riff Raff sat in the back with his hand firmly entwined in hers, holding a light conversation with Sherwood as he drove. Magenta didn't pay much attention to them, instead thinking about how the shitty fucking wind was getting her hair into more knots than it'd ever been in, when Sherwood aimed a question at her.

"Hey, Magenta, when did it start for you?"

"What?" She said, reaching up to pull her unruly hair out of her face. "What do you mean?"

"He means, when did you start falling in love with your brother?" Hawthorne repeated, looking at her with not-at-all veiled contempt. "If he _is_ your brother."

"He is," Magenta said, looking him back in the eye with just as much contempt. "I was a little girl."

Sherwood spoke on. "We didn't really get involved with each other until we were already adults. Getting out on our own, needed roommates, so we got an apartment together. It just kind of happened."

"I don't think they need to know about our romantic history, Sherwood," Hawthorne muttered.

"I'm just trying to make conversation," Sherwood said.

"Not like we need much, anyway, we're almost there. . . ."

They were coming up to the shore of the curve. It was abandoned, but from there it was only a short trek away to Caligarian soil, where there would be a van waiting for them. . . .

The border patrol's sirens started to wail.

Hearing Hawthorne's scream of "Shit!", Magenta turned and saw the flashing lights of a border patrol boat, heading toward them, a loud voice over a megaphone yelling "Stop in the name of the Orwellian law!"

Wasting no time, Sherwood shifted the boat into its full speed, swerving a different part of the curve as the boats seemed to gang up on them. A long beam of light flashed above their heads - antimatter lasers. Magenta felt Riff Raff tug her down so that she was flat on her stomach on the floor of the boat, his own body curled over hers to protect her. She turned her face enough to see the feet of the two cousins, scrambling to move out of the way of the lasers. The sirens were getting closer. . . .

When the boat slowed down, she almost wanted to scream at Sherwood to speed it back up again, but Riff Raff got up off of her and pulled her up enough to realize that they were on the shore. The cousins, having brought nothing but the clothes on their backs, lept from the vehicle immediately. Magenta was still wearing both book bags, so she was ready to jump, too - until she saw Riff Raff move to get something from their suitcase.

"Riff, _please_ , whatever it is, it's not important -" She went to grab his arm, and saw another flashing red light shoot past them. It was inches away from the side of her brother's head, and he finally turned and grabbed her hand. Together they sprung out of the boat, onto the sand below, and they began to sprint away, the distant shapes of Sherwood and Hawthorne in the woods already.

Soon they were in the darkness of the woods, stumbling around, their hands being practically glued together being the only reason that they weren't separated. The sun had completely set by this point, leaving little light. Dark, it was so dark. . . .

 _The darkness of the pantry, the endless panic, the knowledge that De Lordy was going to come and force himself on her any second -_

Magenta screeched and smacked herself. _No, not now, this is not the time or the place -_

But she was there, in the pantry, banging on the door and screaming for someone, anyone to come help her. Her heartbeat was pounding against her ribs, ready to break them, and her lungs were helping, they were expanding with so much air. Her head felt so light, and the pantry was so dark, the food being knocked off the shelf all around her. There was someone holding her hand, and it was De Lordy, and now he was scooping her up in his arms, _oh no, oh please no, he's going to rape me, he's going to take me to his bedroom,_ _ **no please shit don't touch me -**_

She was scrambling and screaming, and soon a few more hands were holding her arms and legs still. Distant voices, vaguely yelling. " _What the fuck is wrong with her?_ " " _She's having a flashback, get her some light -_ "

Her head was so floaty; she was going to pass out, and they would fuck her while she was sleeping -

The light turned on.

She blinked, and she felt a pill being pressed into her hand - yes, a pill, and she remembered what these pills were for. She swallowed it dry, and within a few minutes her light-headedness became pleasant instead of sickly, and she could see now that there was no darkness.

She was in the back of a speeding van, the light hanging over her turned on, Sherwood looking concerned, Hawthorne looking at her like she was the most terrifying thing in the world. Her brother was next to her, one hand firm on her shoulder, the other tightened around her bottle of benzodiazepines. His face was unreadable, but his voice betrayed all his worry. "Genta, are you okay? Do you need space?"

She didn't answer this question, her eyes straying instead to the bottle of pills. "Riff. . . . Did you. . . . Is that what you were getting. . . ?"

"From the suitcase?" He responded. "Yes. Good thing I did, I'd say."

That they were, Magenta thought blearily. From the driver's seat, she heard a guttural voice say, "She alright back there? Poor thing was almost passed out."

"She's alright," Riff Raff said, pulling his sister tightly to him.

She slid her heavy-feeling arms around him and murmured "You prick, my pills aren't that important. . . ."

"Obviously, they were," he said, tracing circles into her back.

"Riff," she murmured into his ear, so quietly that only he could hear. "What does 'icebound' mean?"

He chuckled a bit. "It means involved with someone incestuously. It's a slang, my love." He was now massaging her back deeply. It felt so nice, and she was suddenly so exhausted. . . .

They were in the Capital when she woke up.


	11. Thank You

Next chapter, ready and up!

Wheeeew, this is probably the longest chapter I've written. Riff Raff's little problem is about to become a bigger one. And our favorite incesty babies are about to find themselves a very good break. . . . I think, ha ha.

This fanfic is not Richard O'Brien's, but RHPS is.

* * *

 **Chapter 11: Thank You**

 _The next night was one of those nights that made Riff Raff wish he hadn't gotten out of bed at all._

 _Sienna didn't stop crying; he could hear her all the way from his place down in the shop. Two of his employees were late, one didn't show up at all, and the business was clogged with people needing repairs. Cars were being towed in, hovercrafts being flipped on their tops. Some customers were yelling at his workers, demanding to speak with Riff Raff, complaining at him about things he knew he wouldn't remember later._

 _Magenta didn't help much; she came down from the apartment a few times in a foul mood from their endlessly screaming child, telling him in a snappy voice that one thing or another had to be done soon around the house, and since she was taking care of Sienna she certainly wasn't going to do it. He'd retorted angrily, "Do I look like I'm going to have the energy to do that shit?" Which was answered with another smartass comment from his sister before she went back upstairs._

 _When all the employees finally went home and the shop was finally closed for the day, Riff Raff went on a long, annoyance-fueled walk around town, and despite his remembering to take his medicine that morning, the stress had brought the voices back._

 _ **Such a bad day, it'll never get better.**_

 _ **There's a bridge about a mile away. You could go jump off.**_

 _ **Bet your pretty daughter will still be crying when you get home. Why not smother her?**_

 _ **Smother Magenta too, while you're at it.**_

 _ **Then choke yourself.**_

 _They continued on like this until he was sitting alone on a park bench, leaning over with one hand cradling his head. A few ridiculous thoughts that he was sure weren't his own began to intrude; what if Magenta sets the house on fire? What if Sienna turns into a twelve-foot-tall monster and eats her mother? What if Father shows up out of nowhere and tries to kill me? What if. . . ._

 _He knew none of these things would happen and that he was being unreasonable. But they were still there, and with each one he was hit with, a new pang of genuine worry shot through him._

" _Riff Raff?"_

 _He looked up and saw Magenta standing there, gripping a stroller that contained their sleeping daughter. She looked concerned._

" _Are you. . . ?"_

" _I'm alright," he said, even though someone was in his ear whispering_ _ **she's here to kill you.**_

 _Magenta pushed the stroller forward so that it was next to the bench before she sat beside him. He looked away from her, taking a few deep breaths to try to clear his head, before muttering "I'm sorry I was -"_

" _No, I'm sorry," Magenta said. "I shouldn't have been a bitch about it, I was frustrated because Sienna was such a handful all day."_

" _What was it that needed to be done around the house?"_

" _Dishes, vacuum, dusting, and the trash taken out."_

" _I'll do the dishes and dusting if you take out the trash and vacuum."_

" _Deal."_

 _She scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He moved to wrap an arm around her. They sat in silence for a while before she murmured, "Could be worse. We could be living in that cramped little apartment with Hawthorne and Sherwood and Nori again."_

 _He chuckled a bit, and the voices from his head began to quiet themselves. "Or back on Earth with Frank."_

" _Eugh, don't remind me."_

* * *

It was roughly a year after they'd reached the Capital, and they were living in an apartment that could barely accommodate three people, let alone five.

A twenty-three-year-old Riff Raff woke himself up via his own loud snore, his back aching a bit from the lumps of the hide-a-bed that he and Magenta slept on. Magenta herself was sleeping clear on the other side of the bed, her legs tangled in his a bit, and when he leaned up and rubbed at his eyes he noticed a small spot of drool right below her open mouth. He sniggered a little at that, and moved to role off the mattress.

He left the living room where they slept, and went to the single bathroom in this tiny place. When he began to get ready for the day, he noticed several small differences in his appearance - a bit of unshaved blonde stubble, a pair dark rings forming under his eyes, a little of a yellowish tint to his skin. . . . _I'm fine, it's probably nothing_ , he told himself, moving to brush his teeth.

 **Nothing. Just like you, it's nothing.**

He felt his breathing quicken a bit, but didn't stop brushing his teeth.

 **You ought to stick that toothbrush right down your throat and choke yourself with it.**

He spit and grabbed his and Magenta's shared hairbrush, pulling out a few blonde and red strands before running it through his hair.

 **Take the hairbrush and go beat your sister to death with it.**

When he was done, he noticed a lot more of his own hair was becoming visible in the brush than before. With a few blinks of confusion, his hand went to his head, and he ran several fingers over his scalp before pulling it back to look. . . .

His hand was almost completely filled with straw-colored hair.

The door was knocked open then, and Magenta was there, her eyes half closed and her own hair almost defying gravity around her head. She had a look of unusual tiredness for a twenty-year-old, but her body was a bit more healthy looking, her face a bit fuller, her eyes a bit brighter than what Riff Raff's were becoming.

"Riff, I need the shower, either hop in with me or make way," she muttered, shutting the door behind her and moving to strip off her nightshirt. Shaking his head a bit, Riff Raff discreetly dropped the hair in the trash and went to get in the shower with her.

The water felt hot and soothing in his body, though it did serve to make him just a little more sleepy. He let his eyes close a bit, and when he breathed in Magenta's fresh scent of shampoo and body wash he was briefly calm. . . . And then he felt her fingers begin to trace his chest. He opened his eyes again.

She was looking down his torso, her brow a bit crinkled in concern, and she murmured, "Riff Raff, how much are you eating?"

Riff Raff looked down and realized what she was talking about: his ribs were very clearly visible under his skin. He gently took her hand and pushed it away from him, glancing up to her face and catching something he hadn't noticed before. A very faint, but visible bruise on Magenta's cheekbone.

He reached out to tuck her wet hair behind her ear, lightly slipping a thumb over the bruise, and said, "When was the last time you hit yourself?"

Her eyes flicked away from him for a second, and she muttered, "Don't change the subject."

"I think we've both been having problems we aren't willing to talk about, my love," he said. She opened her mouth to reply, but they heard a knock on the door and a "hurry it up in there!" from Hawthorne, and they were forced to speed up their shower.

* * *

When they'd arrived at the Capital a year ago, Riff Raff and Magenta had thanked the three people that had helped them before going to wander off on their own. But Nori - the friend of Sherwood's who'd been driving the van - had come after them. Huge and muscular, Nori looked at first like ze were coming to attack them, and Riff Raff and Magenta had almost slammed into one another, each trying to pull the other out of the way.

But ze hadn't. Nori had given them the most motherly look they'd ever received in their lives, and ze had asked if the two had anywhere to go. When they'd responded with a reluctant "no," Nori had immediately insisted that they come to live with zir, even though zir apartment was tiny and Sherwood and Hawthorne would already be living there was well. "No" wasn't an acceptable answer.

So there they were, eating a rather rushed breakfast of oatmeal in Nori's living room. Hawthorne and Sherwood had occupied the shower and Nori was sitting in a recliner, Magenta having put up the hide-a-bed so that there was space in the living room again. Nori was older and retired, but ze made extra money via selling knitting projects that ze did. Ze looked rather funny; a large, intimidating person that looked like ze could snap a neck in a heartbeat, sitting there humming an old children's song while knitting a neon pink scarf.

Riff Raff had gotten a job as a janitor for a local upper school - **goddamn kids all hate you probably all want you dead** \- and Magenta worked as a dishwasher for a local restaurant called "The Cabinet." The jobs were, admittedly, not ideal at all. Riff Raff felt flashes of resentment toward Strangelove University every time he had to clean up someone's vomit or scrape gum off from under a desk; _this,_ he thought, _is far from what I wanted to do with my life_. Magenta didn't seem to be faring much better; her hands were starting to get a bit rough, and from what he gathered of her ranting to him, her boss was constantly going back and forth from wanting her to do her job well or to do it quickly.

"You two need anything else for breakfast?" Nori spoke up, zir voice just as rough as zir appearance. "I just went grocery shopping yesterday, I have eggs and bacon and sausage. . . ."

"This'll do, Nori, thank you," Magenta said, scooping up the last bit of her oatmeal. "We need to leave in five minutes, anyway."

"If you're sure, Maggie," Nori said. Ze had given her that nickname a few months into their stay. Magenta herself liked it, but she had once told Riff Raff that she preferred "Genta" by far.

Hawthorne and Sherwood stumbled out of the bathroom, and Hawthorne said, "We have time for eggs and bacon." Nori grinned at them and got up to go to the kitchen.

The two cousins both worked at the same place: a candy shop just a few blocks away. Nori, it turns out, was an old friend of their grandfather's, and ze were far more accepting of the pair's status as an icebound couple than their grandfather would ever be. Hawthorne had protested a bit to letting Riff Raff and Magenta stay with them - "The apartment's too small, and we still don't know if we can trust them!" - but Sherwood seemed to have convinced his lover that having the pair around wasn't so bad. Or, at least, Hawthorne had stopped grumbling at them under his breath.

They left the apartment to find that the city was just as lovely as ever.

Lights, endless lights from the buildings and streetlamps and stoplights. It was almost too blinding to look at, which was probably why a lot of the people walking the streets wore sunglasses, despite the sky being black and the moon being high. Said people were dressed richly, in flashing gold and black with fishnets made of some expensive type of material. Skin was adorned with jewels, the especially rich showing themselves off with glittering gems on their faces. The buildings seemed unusually shiny, not quite the silvery shiny as the city of Aldous had, but a strange prism sort of shine. The streets always looked freshly paved, the cars and hovercrafts fresh and new. And everyone looked _happy_ ; even the obviously poorer people - who you could deem as poor purely because their clothes weren't luminescent - would walk with slight smiles on their faces, little hops in their steps.

Riff Raff and Magenta let a few of the positive vibes fill them as they walked down the street, hand-in-hand. The vibes, however, weren't quite good enough to make Riff Raff forget about something from earlier.

"So," he asked in a soft voice, "want to tell me what was bothering you enough for pain to be seen as a credible solution, my love?"

Magenta sighed a bit, half in annoyance, and released his hand. But she answered.

"It was a bad day. Someone shoved herself into me at work and I dropped a dish, and she started to scream at me for it. I was cleaning up the mess, but she kept on yelling, so when I was done I excused myself to a bathroom. . . ." She didn't look at him. "It was quick, it was painful, and it calmed me down enough to go back out there and deal with it without blowing up."

"But?"

She looked over at him. "But what?"

"But you know it won't help in the long run."

"It helps now."

He stopped her then, motioning her to join him near a small alleyway so that they wouldn't be overheard or get in anyone's way. He took her hands and looked her straight in the eye. "But what about later? When you don't want to tell me or anyone else about it? How do you feel then?"

She shifted a bit, but didn't pull away or look somewhere else. ". . . . Guilty," she muttered.

"Why do you feel guilty?"

"Riff Raff, we're going to be late for work."

"Tell me why."

She sighed. "Because I know it'll worry you."

"It does worry me, but that's not why you should stop," he whispered, pulling her closer to him to hold her. "You should stop because you deserve so much better. You don't deserve such abuse from anyone, especially not yourself."

She didn't put her arms around him as she usually would, but she let her head rest against his shoulder. "You don't know what I deserve," she muttered.

"But I do know that no one deserves this."

With that, he let go of her and pulled his arms back, his hands parallel to the ground, and she did the same, the two of them doing a slow Brachorea until their hands were down again, their fingers entwined. He said quietly, "I love you, Genta. Keep that in mind, will you? Even if you choose to ignore everything I just said."

They began to walk again, this time in silence, until they were at the school where Riff Raff worked. Before she moved to say goodbye, Magenta told him, "We need to talk about what's going on with you, too, when we get off work." She pressed a firm kiss to his lips before muttering, "I love you, you prick."

 **No she doesn't.**

* * *

Magenta was getting off for her lunch break when she got the call.

She and Riff Raff had no personal communication devices, but they kept the numbers for each other's workplaces memorized. Right before she left the kitchen, a chef called her name, and she almost growled in frustration, thinking that he wanted to rip into her about something she'd done wrong. But instead, he handed her the phone.

"Hello?" She said, a bit confused.

"Magenta," it was Riff Raff's voice on the other end, raspy and thick. She felt her eyes widen and went up to grip the phone with her free hand.

"Riff Raff? What is it?"

"I need. . . . I need you here." He swallowed hard, and she realized he was crying. "I can't. . . . I need. . . ."

"I'll be right there," she said, and he mumbled an "okay" before hanging up.

Magenta nearly sprinted to the school, heels in one hand, and found him a block away from it. He was at the side of a building, sitting down with his head in his hands, inhaling deeply and shaking slightly. When she approached, he jumped a bit, looking at her with wide, terrified eyes. Tears were streaming down his face. "Who are you?"

"Riff Raff?" she said, stopping. He scooted away from her, pressing himself to the building wall.

"Stay back," he said. When she took a step closer, he almost screamed " _I said stay back!_ "

She stopped and knelt down until she was on her knees in front of him. A few people stopped and stared at them from the street, and she had to resist the urge to scream at them to mind their own fucking business. "Riffy, it's me. It's Magenta. Do you recognize me?"

"You're not my Genta, you're not. . . ." his eyes were just a little bit blank.

"Riffy, love, it's me. Look at me."

"I can't. . . ." a few more tears slipped out. He stared at her harder, a long silence stretching out between them, until finally, recognition dawned in his eyes.

"Genta. . . ." he said, and he stumbled to his feet. She stood up as well, but was almost knocked back down again when he tackled her into an embrace. His entire body was trembling, and when she wrapped her arms around him, it hit her for the first time how thin he felt.

* * *

Magenta still had about forty minutes left of her lunch break, so she took him back to The Cabinet to get him some discount food. He didn't want any of it, but he ate anyway, just to appease her.

"I was mopping up the gym when it started," he said, after finishing his plate. "I was alone, and then. . . ."

"And then what?" Magenta leaned forward. She hadn't touched her own food, and instead was gazing at him with intensity.

He swallowed. "And then I started to hear them. The. . . . The voices."

"The voices?" Magenta said, confused. _My brother has been hearing voices?_

"Yes," he said. "I hear. . . . I didn't want to tell you this, I didn't think it was a problem at first, but I've been hearing voices. In my head."

Magenta stared at him, temporarily stunned into silence. _What does he mean, he hears voices in his head? Is he going crazy? Is this why he's been looking so unhealthy?_

 _Why didn't he tell me?_

". . . . What do they say?" she finally asked.

Riff Raff wasn't meeting her gaze, instead looking down at his lap and fiddling with a napkin. "They tell me. . . . They tell me to do things. Violent things. To myself and to other people. And they insult me."

Magenta got up and moved over to his side of their booth, putting an arm around him. He leaned into her. "What happened after they started talking?" she said quietly.

"They told me to attack the teenagers who went to the school. Or to go to the top of the gym and jump off." He went quiet for a bit, and then looked at her. "And there's something else. I began to think things. Horrible things. I started to believe that the kids at the school were monsters. Demons sent to kill me. And Magenta, the strange part is, I _knew_ that wasn't true. Every rational part of me told me it wasn't. But I believed it, and I was ready to lock all the doors to the gym and bludgeon to death any child that tried to come in."

Magenta's head was reeling. _He's got something wrong with him. In his mind. Like my flashbacks, only something else entirely._ "What did you do?"

"I started crying. I was terrified," he said. "I went to the nearest phone and called you. Then I left the school without telling anyone I was leaving." He sighed. "Probably going to lose my damn job for that."

"It doesn't matter, we'll find you a new one," Magenta said fiercely. "What happened then?"

"I sat down on the side of that building and waited for you. And everyone. . . ." he looked away from her then. "Everyone was a monster. They were all waiting to kill me. I couldn't stop crying. When I saw you, it wasn't you, it was a _thing_ that was going to try to murder me."

"Riff Raff. . . ." she moved to run a hand through his hair and pulled it back to find quite a few strands of blonde had come out with it. She looked at it in confusion. "Your hair. . . ."

"And I'm also losing my hair," he muttered.

"Is this why you've been looking so. . . . Sickly?" she said, moving to run her fingers across his back instead.

"I think so," he muttered. "It's been getting to me so much. . . . I don't want to eat, I'm not sleeping well, I dread each new night because I know that my own mind won't shut itself up. I don't know what to do about it, Genta."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" she said. "When did it start?"

"I didn't want to worry you," he mumbled. "And about a year ago."

Magenta moved closer. He turned his face to her and she kissed him softly before leaning her forehead against his and whispering, "We're going to fix this. I swear we're going to fix this."

"You two might need a bit of help, fixing something like that."

They looked up and saw a man standing there. Tall, a pitch black suit clothing him, a pair of sunglasses on his white face. His hair was very long and pin straight, and he wore a black top hat, a cane in one of his hands, a small black beard on his chin. A few silvery jewelry pieces stuck out at them; a skull-shaped ring, a chain on his hips, a single piercing on his lower lip. He was smiling at them, a friendly enough smile, but since Magenta couldn't see his eyes, she didn't trust it.

"Sorry to barge in on you," he said, his voice smooth and cordial. "But I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Tell me, my good man," he said, looking at Riff Raff. "Have you any idea what psychosis is?"

"Yes," Riff Raff said, and Magenta felt one of his hands move to her lap to grip hers. "I've worked out that that is likely my problem."

"There's no likely about it, you have it," the man said, and without any invitation he slunk into the seat across from them where Magenta had been previously sitting. "You see, my dear friend, I work at a local mental institution, and well," he flashed another smile, this time showing blindingly white teeth. "I'm quite familiar with the topic. Would you like some help, good man?"

"He doesn't need to be locked up in a mental institution." Magenta's voice was cold as she gripped her brother tighter to her. _I don't care if you really work there or not. You're not taking him from me._

"Oh, you mistake my intention, dear lady," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "I don't mean you should have him committed. I'm merely saying that, out of the goodness of my heart," he leaned forward a bit. "I'm willing to help out."

"I don't believe you," Magenta snapped. "Now I suggest you get the fuck out of our faces."

"Such a temper," he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her. "Perfect, for someone with such vivid red hair. Tell me, does your friend here get a say in this? Since it is _his_ problem?"

"I agree with my sister," Riff Raff said, giving the man a look that was less openly hostile, but still untrusting. "Thank you for your offer, but I can deal with this on my own."

"Clearly, seeing how you left your workplace today thinking that everyone was going to kill you," the man said, and it was only a grip on her hand from Riff Raff that kept Magenta from yelling at the man to get his smug ass out of their booth. "So, this is your sister, is it?"

"What of it?" Magenta said.

He turned to her. "Well, I have a sister and a brother myself, and you see. . . . I've never quite had the desire to kiss either of them the way you kissed him."

Magenta tensed up, and she felt Riff Raff do the same next to her. But the man only giggled. "Relax a bit, will you? I'm not so narrow-minded as to try to assault you or anything. But I've never met a couple like you, and I'm curious. . . ." he leaned forward, interested. "Tell me, what makes someone fall in love with their brother or sister? Quite frankly, it makes me a bit queasy to imagine myself with either of my siblings -"

"We're leaving now," Magenta said, getting out of the booth and offering a hand up to Riff Raff. "We don't need your nosy ass up our business."

He took her hand and they started to walk toward the exit of the restaurant, but the man got up and followed them. "You don't sound like you're from Caligari," the man said. "I've heard the accent you have, miss. My brother has brought home a few rich college friends with that accent. Tell me, are you Orwellian?"

The siblings went through the doorway and started to walk faster, but the man was suddenly in front of them, that stupid grin on his face. "You _are_ from the country of Orwell, aren't you? And knowing your status as a sibling couple. . . ." he let out another giggle. "You probably hopped the border to come somewhere more accepting, didn't you?"

"Fuck off," Magenta hissed, squeezing Riff Raff's hand protectively.

The man smiled. "I still haven't introduced myself, have I? It's not my real name, but around this part of town I'm known as Cesare." He bowed a bit. "And you?"

"I believe I told you to fuck off," Magenta said.

"I heard you, my lovely lady," Cesare said. "And you really ought not to swear so gratuitously; it's not very becoming of someone so beautiful."

At this Magenta was ready to lunge at him, but she felt Riff Raff move his hands so that they were on her shoulders, holding her back. "We want to leave now, if you don't mind," Riff Raff said, and there was a noticeable hint of a threat in his voice.

"Fine, fine," Cesare said. "But back to my original offer: I can help you. I can offer you some help from a doctor, my good man, and I can get you a better job than being a janitor. Surely, your bosses would've discovered by now that you're gone; they're probably preparing to terminate your employment this very moment. And you. . . ." his gaze shifted to Magenta. "I can offer you a better job as well. I've been here for a good two hours, and I saw you leave the kitchen, my dear. What are you? Cleaner? Dishwasher?"

"That's not your damn -"

"Not my business, I know. But I saw it. And on the salary of a janitor and a dishwasher, you two can't be making a lot of money, can you? Not enough to be living anywhere nice. . . ." Magenta's mind went to Nori's cramped little apartment. She didn't respond.

"That's what I thought," he said. "And since you're likely border hoppers, you probably don't have any legal access to Caligari's free healthcare, do you? And certainly not enough money to help your dear brother." At the word "brother," he gave a smug smile. "I want to assist you. Contact me, and I can get you two better jobs, a better home, and medical treatment."

Cesare flipped out a small business card out his jacket and reached out to tuck it into Riff Raff's shirt pocket. "Take this. Contact me, if you so desire." And with that he turned to leave them.

"Why are you offering us help?" It was Riff Raff who said it, his hands tightening a bit on Magenta's shoulders.

Without even looking back, Cesare said, "Because you interest me. I'll talk to you in the future."

Soon the two were alone again. Magenta was still seething, and she burst out, "Who does that asshole think he is? Just fucking barging in on our conversation, what makes him think he has the fucking right?"

"Something about him looked familiar," Riff Raff said. "I know he was wearing sunglasses, but I feel like I've seen him before. . . ."

"I don't care, just fuck that idiot, if he thinks we'll take him up on his stupid offer he's sorely mistaken -" she cut herself off when she saw Riff Raff staring at the business card, his eyes wide. "What is it?"

"I know who he is. And where I've seen him before." He turned the card toward her so that she could see what was written.

Howard P. Furter, Ph. D.

Phone number: 1975 07 14

Address: 1973 O'Brien Street, Capital, Caligari

"So?" Magenta said.

Riff Raff snorted. "Really, Magenta, you need to keep up on current events more," he said. Then he swallowed and nervously continued, "1973 O'Brien Street is the address of the Royal Castle. Where the Great and Fabulous Furters live. That man. . . ." he looked at her intensely. "The reason he's so familiar is because I _have_ seen him before. In the news and in history classes. That man was Prince Howard P. Furter."

* * *

Despite a lot of arguments over it, a lot of protests from Magenta, and a lot of concerned questions from Nori, Riff Raff ended up giving the prince's number a call a few nights later.

"We need something, Magenta. I'm getting sicker and your pills have expired, and I lost my job because I left my post that night. Nori's apartment is far too small, and we've been living off of zir for far too long. We can't afford to pass this up."

She'd tried to convince him otherwise, but a few more glances of her brother's deteriorating state finally made her break down and let him make the call. He was now sitting on the couch in Nori's living room, the phone pressed to his ear, the other four occupants of the apartment watching him closely. Ringing, it was still ringing. . . .

There was a click.

"Hello?" Definitely the prince's voice.

"Hello," Riff Raff said shakily. "This is Riff Raff Vitus, and we. . . . We met at the Cabinet a few nights ago."

"Oh?" The other voice perked up. "Were you that handsome blonde fellow with the temperamental red-haired sister?"

"Er, yes," Riff Raff said. "Your majesty -"

"Oh please, Mr. Vitus, let's skip all that," he said. "I told you to call me Cesare."

"Cesare," Riff Raff said. He took a long, deep breath. "I was wondering if your offer to us still stood."

"Depends. Are you willing to take it?"

"It took us a while to decide, but we are."

"Splendid," Cesare said. "I can move you into the castle very soon. How long will it take you and your sister to pack up?"

"Just a few hours or so, we don't have much," Riff Raff said. "If you don't mind, what jobs would we be taking?"

"A handyman and a domestic, likely. Doesn't sound like much, but we pay our servants sixty silver dollars an hour, and room and board is free."

"Good," Riff Raff felt a huge weight being lifted off of his shoulders. He'd been a handyman before, he knew how to handle it. "That's very good. I want to thank you -"

"Oh, stop it, Mr. Vitus," Cesare said. "By the way, I'll call into the hospital I work at and set you up with an appointment, if that's no problem. You won't be institutionalized, I promise, but that is where all the psychiatrists seem to be working at the moment. A few hours, you said it would take you?"

"Yes."

"Good then, let's see what time it is now. . . . If you like, I can be there by sunrise."

"That would be wonderful."

"Alrighty, then. Address?"

Riff Raff told him, and he said "Very good. Tell your lovely sister I said hello. I will see you in a bit." And with that, he clicked off.

Riff Raff hung up the phone with shaking hands, and he turned to Magenta to breathe out, "We got the jobs."

She scooted closer to him to wrap an arm around him as Sherwood, Hawthorne, and Nori cheered. "Jobs doing what?"

"I'll be a handyman again, and you'll be a domestic," he said, putting an arm around her in turn.

Her brow furrowed. "A domestic what?"

"A maid, dork," he told her, kissing her on the cheek before turning to the other three. "Thank you all so much for letting us live here, we're grateful for your kindness -"

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, dearie," Nori got up and leaned down to give Riff Raff a motherly kiss on the forehead. "Now, you just come right back here if this thing at the castle doesn't work out, alright? I've grown rather attached to you two."

"So have we, even though Hawthorne doesn't like to admit it," Sherwood said, and his lover grunted in protest.

* * *

Cesare arrived in style. There was no other way to put it.

A long, black limousine-styled hovercraft pulled up in front of the apartment building, and people instantly began to flock around it, photos being taken, people crying out "It's the royal family! Which one of them is it?"

The siblings each only had one large suitcase full of stuff, and they gripped each other's hands as they made their way out of the building. A crowd of people tried to overrun them, but the driver got out of the limousine and offered to take their bags to the trunk before opening the back door for them. They slid inside, the yelling of the gathering crowd almost deafening them until the door was shut. The hovercraft began to rise.

Sitting directly across from them was a grinning Cesare, his smile going from ear to ear. He immediately reached out to kiss both of their hands and said, "Welcome! Welcome to my Cesare-mobile, I hope you find it comfortable. I simply cannot wait to show you two around the Royal Castle, it'll be lovely!"

There was a snort of annoyance next to him, and Magenta noticed the girl he was seated next to. She couldn't have been older than eighteen, and she was thin, wearing a torn little black dress and pinkish-purple fishnets, her long hair half black and half dyed white. Her pale, sharp face was looking at them with open disdain, and Magenta decided on the spot that she didn't like this girl.

"Ah, forgive me," Cesare said. "This is my lovely sister, Carmilla. I'm sure you've heard of her. . . ."

Riff Raff bowed to the princess at once, and Magenta did so with slight reluctance. "And this is Riff Raff Vitus and his sister. . . . I'm sorry, dear, I don't quite know your name."

"Magenta Vitus," she responded.

"Magenta, how pretty," Cesare said. "Just like the color of your fishnets, sister!"

Carmilla only threw Magenta a disdainful look before saying, "I do wonder, brother, why you insist on picking up servants in our private hovercraft. Are they not commoners? We don't need to have them riding with royalty."

Magenta almost opened her mouth to make a sarcastic response, but Riff Raff's hand squeezed hers, mentally telling her _no._

"Oh, posh, I like interacting with these so-called commoners," Cesare said. He leaned forward and took off his sunglasses - his eyes were a bright hazel. "Tell me, you two, how has your week been?"

It continued like this for the twenty-minute ride to the Royal Castle; Cesare would ask them random questions, they'd respond, Carmilla would say something snooty, and Magenta would practically twitch in her seat, being unable to answer. They soon arrived at the house of the Great and Fabulous Furters. Their new home.

The castle was most definitely one of the most beautiful buildings Magenta had ever seen. Gold, it was colored entirely gold, with great spirals for towers and a large glistening moat around it. There was a long stone bridge leading right to the castle gate, but the hovercraft flew right over it and landed on a small landing strip near the top of a tall, cone-shaped tower. When the four got out, a rush of servants ran to get their bags, and Cesare said, "They'll be taking your bags to your shared room. I'll show you to it later."

"For now," Carmilla said, her voice still keeping that edge that made Magenta want to punch her, "we will introduce you to Mother."

The corridors they walked down were all the same gold color as the outside of the castle, the windows large and the many balconies open. The curtains looked to be a velvet that Magenta wanted to reach out and touch, but she instead stayed close to her brother as Cesare prattled on.

". . . . and this picture over here is of my family and I, when we were much younger, before my father passed on. Oh, fun fact, these walls aren't really made out of gold; we just enjoy painting them that way, it gives off a stronger impression of wealth and royalty, don't you think? Oh, that corridor over there leads to our brother's room. He's always been a bit of an oddball, that one. Oh and that chandelier! Isn't it lovely, it's made completely out of crystal. . . ."

He went on like this until they came to the throne room. Pausing at the door, he turned to them and said, "Now remember, stop about ten feet away from her chair and bow. Not a half-hearted bow, a full on-your-knees bow. She's half blind, so she won't really know the difference, but it's best to do it out of basic respect."

"She is, after all, the ruler of this entire planet," Carmilla said. And with that she pushed opened the huge doors and lead the way in.

The throne room was simply one long, wide hallway with a glass ceiling and a bloody red carpet. At the end of the room, on a small platform, sat the Old Queen Rosemary Furter herself. She was small and round, with a painted white face and beady brown eyes that contained no warmth. Her nose was disproportionately large, compared to the rest of her face. Her curly hair was mostly gray, a few black strands left. Magenta followed her brother and, roughly ten feet away from the Old Queen, got down to her knees and bowed. From the corner of her eye she could see Riff Raff had gone so low that his forehead was almost touching the ground, and she quickly adjusted herself so that she was doing the same.

"New servants, eh?" The Old Queen said. Her voice was gravelly and rough, but not the sort of pleasant gravelly and rough that Nori's was.

"Yes, Mother," Cesare said with a grin. "I found these two lovelies while I was on an outing away from the psychiatric hospital. Aren't they gorgeous?"

"Hmph," the Old Queen said, and she suddenly lost interest in them and turned to her son. "You still working at the crazy circus? How many times have I told you it's not worth your time?"

"I enjoy my work, Mother," Cesare said patiently, and Magenta got the feeling that they'd had this conversation a few times before.

"Still, unbefitting for the future king of Transsexual," the Old Queen said. She didn't even acknowledge Carmilla, instead saying, "Where's your brother at? Sweet little tyke has a new order of makeup in the mail, and I want to give it to him." At the mention of her second son, the Old Queen's cold eyes filled with affection. It was clear who the favorite was.

"I don't know where he -" Cesare began, and then the doors of the throne room burst open.

" _Mother!_ "

A tall man around Riff Raff's age stood there. He was wearing perhaps the most glittery pair of underwear ever, attached to some long fishnets and a very high pair of black heels. A tight black corset was cinching his waist, and on his face was makeup so dramatic it would put theater actors to shame. His arms were adorned with long fishnet gloves, his curly black hair brushing his shoulders, and a glittery choker adorning his neck. He didn't seem to notice that anything was going on, and marched right up to the Old Queen's throne with perhaps the biggest pout Magenta had seen in her life.

"Mother dear, a few of my friends are here for a little fun with me, and the guards simply will not let them in! They're not listening to me at all, the little pests, when I tell them that these people are my guests. Would you be so kind," he leaned over and gave her such an adoring look it was sickening, "as to let them know what will happen if they decide to ignore my orders again?"

"Of course, my sweet boy, anything for you." The Old Queen had gone from harsh and unlikable to looking at this man like he was the most precious thing in the world. She got up off her seat and started to head for the door. "By the way, your new makeup came in the mail. . . ."

"Mother, aren't you forgetting something?" Cesare said. When she looked back at him, he motioned toward Riff Raff and Magenta. "Oh," the Old Queen said. "Show them to their room, they start work tomorrow." She turned and went to leave the throne room, but the new man stayed behind, looking at the two with high interest.

"And what do we have here?" He said, turning to strut toward them as they got up. A big smile came to his face and he let out a low giggle. "My, Howie, you caught quite the pretty pair of servants this time, didn't you?"

"They are very nice-looking indeed, brother," Cesare said. "And please, I've told you a million times to call me Cesare. Now, I'm going to show Mr. and Miss Vitus to their room, so if you don't mind. . . ."

"Oh, I don't mind. Just let me introduce myself," the man took each of their hands and kissed them, giving them a smile that could only be described as downright flirtatious. "My name is Frank N. Furter. But you can call me Master."


	12. To Hell With You

Hallooo, everyone.

I've realized that I quite love writing Frank's scenes. Mild warning in that he is serious about his sexual harassment.

Enjoy!

RHPS belongs to Richard O'Brien.

* * *

 **Chapter 12: To Hell With You**

 _After they'd finished their chores, Riff Raff went to sleep quickly. He sat down on the couch and leaned back to rest himself, with Magenta sitting next to him and giving his chest a one-handed massage. Within minutes, he was out._

 _Magenta smiled a bit and went to get a blanket to put over him. No use in waking him up to just bring him to their bed; it had been a long day. She leaned down and kissed him before going into their own bedroom._

 _Sienna was making soft noises in the bassinet, and Magenta picked her up. Her daughter, so small and frail. Her feet bent inwards at an unnatural angle, a tiny scar forming at her upper lip. Sienna's birth defects hadn't been too serious, but they had been there. She was, after all, a product of incest._

 _A cleft lip and palate. Club feet. A heart defect; specifically, coarctation of the aorta, which the doctors had only discovered when they saw how high Sienna's blood pressure had been after the surgery to correct her palate. Her heart surgery was scheduled for three days from now. At the thought of it, Magenta held her daughter a bit tighter. "Stay strong for me, will you?" she murmured to the tiny thing in her arms. "I don't think I'll be able to take it if you don't come out of this okay. . . ."_

 _She hadn't thought she could ever love anyone as much as she loved Riff Raff. Damn, had she been wrong._

 _Sitting down to feed her child, Magenta let her thoughts stray back to their six years working at the Royal Castle. Not a horrible life, for her. The other domestics were friendly, the food was great, the room she'd shared with Riff Raff had been soundproof enough to keep their late escapades from getting any unwanted attention. And plus, if another servant wanted to get in on it, the bed was thankfully big enough._

 _Riff Raff, though, had been quite miserable. And the worst part about it was that he likely wouldn't have been, if not for the constant sexual harassment that had come from Frank N Furter._

* * *

Riff Raff let out a groan of frustration when he heard one of the butlers say, "By the way, Riff Raff, Master Frank requests your presence."

Frank N. Furter, it seemed, didn't know the difference between teasingly playing hard-to-get and just being flat out told "no." It had been going on since day one at the castle, a few years ago, where Riff Raff had been washing one of the Old Queen's hovercrafts and Frank had come in to "keep him company." And by that, he'd of course meant "endlessly flirt with him and touch him in creepily sexual ways."

From that point on it was endless days of Riff Raff avoiding the younger prince, who seemed to be getting more and more needy.

"Where is he?"

"Bedroom."

He began to trudge to Frank's room, a the other servants giving him pitiful looks as he left. A few of them wore fake hunchbacks - a longtime Transsexualite symbol of submission and being completely owned by their masters. The sight of them made Riff Raff thankful for his own straight back.

On his way down the corridor, he caught an interesting sight: Cesare, walking away from his sister's room with a look that could only be described as pure irritation. He almost ran straight into Riff Raff - would've, if he hadn't glanced up at the last second.

"Oh, hello, my good man," he said, giving a forced smile. "How have you been? See you've, ahh, been shedding a bit. . . ."

By this, he meant Riff Raff's hair; a visible bald spot had formed on top of his head. Riff Raff's hand went up to his hair and he muttered, "Unfortunately. How are things for you?"

"Stressful, I admit," the prince said. He leaned a bit on his cain. "Mother's riding me for my job at the mental hospital again, I'm afraid. Speaking of which, how are your appointments coming?"

Riff Raff had been seeing a doctor once a month for the entire duration of his time with the Furters. Despite feeling reluctant to talk at first, there had soon been deep discussions on the voices, the delusions. Medications had been tried out and discarded. One particular pill had deluded him into thinking he was the Old Queen's husband (he had spent a night in the hospital after that incident.)

Now, he had been taking the same pill for roughly three weeks. The voices, he found, still weren't shutting up, but he was no longer having those horrible intrusive paranoid beliefs. He supposed that was good enough for now.

"Well enough."

"No more claiming to be my new father?" Cesare gave him a more joking smile this time, winking.

"Quite funny, sir," Riff Raff said. He'd been lucky he hadn't been fired for that day. Cesare had likely had something to do with that.

Cesare sighed suddenly, his face going from joking to exhausted. "Can I tell you something, Riff Raff?"

"Sir?"

"I'm considering -"

At that moment, Carmilla burst into the hallway, her face red and her eyes livid. "There you are!" She yelled, and then she was next to Cesare, her hand gripping his arm like a vise. "I'm not done talking to you yet, Howard! How _dare_ you try to sneak away from me -"

"Er, Carmilla," he said, and his eyes strayed to Riff Raff. "We do have company, you know. . . ."

Carmilla's eyes shot to Riff Raff like whips. "Do we now? Well, he can leave at this moment, he doesn't need to hear anything."

Normally, she kept her scathing attitude toward her servants and commoners in check; but at the moment, she had gone from passive aggressive to downright aggressive in tone. Riff Raff hastily bowed a bit. "Of course, Mistress, I will make way this instant."

With this he found himself rushing down the hall, toward Frank's room. Away from one fire, and toward another one.

"Carmilla, really, you don't need to be so harsh with the servants -" Cesare's voice echoed.

"Please, after that incident with his little 'I'm the king' delusion, he deserves a damn hunchback. Now, as I was saying. . . ."

He turned to the find himself at Frank's door, and took a deep breath in resignation. _Well, might as well see what the asshole has for me this time._

When he opened the door, he certainly saw. Frank's bedroom was thrashed - but not a regular sort of clothes-and-trash-everywhere thrashed. Frank's room was covered in sex toys. Dildos of every shape, vibrators still buzzing, strap-ons, anal beads and plugs, nipple clamps, fleshlites, cock rings. . . . and a lot of stuff that Riff Raff couldn't even identify. On the large bed in the middle of the room, Frank lay seductively with the blankets tossed around him, wearing nothing but velvet black panties and a deep red waist corset, his face done up as usual, his smile predatory and his eyes trained right on Riff Raff.

Riff Raff almost turned around to leave without saying anything. But, this was his job, to be a servant to the Furter family, and he didn't want to lose it.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to look Frank in the eye. "You called, Master?"

Frank made a noise that was half giggle and half purr. "I did, didn't I?" He sat up and moved so that he was sitting at the edge of his bed, legs crossed, face still keeping that sultry expression. "Riff Raff, as you can see, I've made a bit of a. . . . _mess_ ," he shifted his legs so that they rubbed gently against each other. "I'd pick it up myself, but you see, I'm feeling a little lightheaded." He put the back of his hand on his forehead to emphasize it.

 _Sure you are_ , Riff Raff thought.

"I need a strong man to help me out a bit," Frank continued, his teeth a flashing white against his violet-red painted lips.

 _I don't know why you're calling me, then. I'm a scrawny runt._

"Care to do this for your master?" Frank leaned forward a bit, his voice oozing sex.

 _No._

"Yes, Master," Riff Raff said. He took barely a step in before Frank told him to close the door behind him. With his apprehension growing, Riff Raff obeyed.

"The dildos and vibrators go in my drawer, right here," Frank said, motioning to the dresser right next to his bed. "Anything else you can just throw in that box, over there. . . ." A slight wiggle of his drawn-on eyebrows added an ending to that sentence. _Unless you want to keep it._

Riff Raff picked up each toy with the tips of his fingers, making note to scrub his hands until his skin fell off later. He quickly began to place each of them where Frank said, until only a few toys in, Frank stretched back out on the bed and said, "Riff Raff, it's awfully hot in here, don't you think?"

"I suppose so, Master."

"You're sweating, poor thing," Frank said. "If you're so hot, why don't you take your shirt and coat off?"

Riff Raff stopped halfway through reaching down to pick up an anal plug and mentally kicked himself for not catching what Frank had been setting up. He slowly took the plug and dropped it into the box, and heard Frank say, again, "Riff Raff, I really am so worried you'll get overheated. . . ." A subtle order was in his voice: _take them off now._

"Yes, Master," Riff Raff said, and slowly he took off his coat and unbuttoned his shirt, placing them on a chair in the corner of the room. He heard another one of those low giggles from Frank, and could feel his upper body being eye fucked as he continued to pick up the mess.

After a few moments, he heard Frank getting up from his place in the bed, and pointedly did not look to him as he went to grab a strap-on. Then he felt the fingers on his back, right between his shoulderblades, and Frank was leaning down so that his mouth was directly above Riff Raff's ear. "You know, Riff Raff," the fingers went up and found their way into his hair. "I've always had a thing for _blonde_ men."

Riff Raff didn't know what else to do but freeze. Frank's tongue slipped along the side of his ear, and he felt teeth nip at it. _Oh fuck. Fuck no, no, I did not sign on for this, no. . . ._

Riff Raff bolted up and quickly threw the strap-on in the box. "Master, I think I should -"

"Oh-ho-ho, _yes_ ," Frank laughed out, and suddenly his arms were around Riff Raff from behind, one hand stroking his stomach with deliberate slowness. "I love it when you call me 'Master.' So very," he placed a hard, sensual kiss on Riff Raff's neck, " _delicious_ sounding, when you say it."

Riff Raff quickly got himself out of Frank's arms and began to pick up the toys with much more haste. At this, Frank huffed irritably. "Oh really now," he complained, "Riff Raff, we both know why I actually called you in here. Come on." When Riff Raff turned to throw a vibrator into the drawer, Frank stopped him via grabbing the hand that held it, forcing the device completely into Riff Raff's palm as he gave him a lustful smile. "I know you've heard things about me from some of the other servants. Like that I can be quite. . . ." He suddenly pulled Riff Raff in and kissed him, right on the lips. Riff Raff froze as Frank pulled away, his teeth pulling Riff Raff's lip just a bit before giving him a beckoning smile. ". . . . persuasive."

"Master, please," Riff Raff said, and he slid his hand out of Frank's and went down to scoop up another toy. "I don't want -"

"Oh, they usually don't want it at first," Frank said, and he gave Riff Raff a smug smile as a few more toys got thrown into the box. "But with a few properly placed touches. . . ." and then he was behind Riff Raff again, his hands on Riff Raff's hips, his lips harshly sucking Riff Raff's neck. Riff Raff cringed, but a moan escaped his mouth anyway, and Frank moved his hands up his sides and over his chest. ". . . . they _melt_ to me, Riff Raff."

"It looks like the room is clean, Master," Riff Raff said, and he pulled himself out of Frank's grasp. "If there's nothing else, I'll be going now."

"Oh, there's plenty else."

The sound of Magenta's voice caught him entirely off-guard, and he looked around in confusion, expecting to see her in the room. But she wasn't; it was just him and Frank, who was giving that same stare of lust. "You see," he said, and it was Magenta's voice coming out of his lips, tempting him. "I've also got a bit of a kink for pretending to be people I'm not. I have more than one red wig, you know. If you like," Frank reached out to touch his face, "you can call me Magenta."

Riff Raff grabbed his coat and shirt quickly and muttered, "I think I hear the queen calling for me." He was out the door in seconds, walking the speediest walk he could accomplish.

He was halfway down the corridor when he heard Frank again, this time speaking in his normal voice. "Oh, and Riff Raff?"

He stopped and turned around slowly. Frank was in the doorway, staring him down with a gaze that was no longer sexual at all. It was cold and just a bit frightening. "I'm having a hunchback fitted for you tomorrow evening," Frank said, his tone dripping with venom. "Sorry to do this, but you see, I'm not good at taking 'no' for an answer."

* * *

Things got even worse a few nights later.

Riff Raff was wearing with his new hunchback, sitting in the servants' common room, barely picking at his dinner of meat and potatoes. The voices were going strong.

 **You deserve it.**

 **Frank should've beaten you with a flail.**

 **Or one of his heavier dildos.**

 **You should stab yourself in the neck with that fork.**

 **Break the plate and use the broken glass to cut your arms open.**

 **Rip out your hair. You're going to eventually lose it all, anyway.**

Magenta sat next to him silently, eating her food with an sort of aggression that looked almost funny. She'd been positively livid when she'd seen him with his hunchback the first time, demanding to know which of the Furters had imposed this. "Was it Carmilla? That goddamn bitch, give me a fucking reason to kick her in the crotch and I'll do it -"

"You're not kicking anybody anywhere," Riff Raff had said firmly. "And no. It was Frank."

Magenta's tirade had then focused itself on Frank, how she didn't give a flying shit if he was the prince, she'd kill him by stabbing him with his own damn eyeliner pencils. Riff Raff had let her rant, but when she was finished, he'd only said that nothing could be done about it if they wanted to keep their jobs. It was unfair and highly unpleasant, but that was life.

Cesare had been shocked to see him with it too, but unsurprised when Riff Raff gave the reason as to why. "Wish I could do something for you, good man. But Frank isn't easily persuaded, nor is he a good person to say 'no' to."

Riff Raff had refused in the first place because Frank was such a vile man. A whiney, sadistic, brat of a prince that Riff Raff wanted no part of, sexually or otherwise. He and Magenta weren't completely monogamous in terms of their sex lives, and in truth he likely would've said yes at some point if Frank's personality hadn't been so repulsive. But it was, and the hunchback now in place under his clothes was proof.

Magenta had finished her food and got up to wash her plate when the servants heard it. Screaming that practically rocked the castle, coming from upstairs, in the zen room. It was the Old Queen; her yell was almost legendary among the residents of the castle, having been known to apparently crack windows (this neither Riff Raff nor Magenta had ever seen, but a few servants swore by it.)

A blank stare was shared by all the workers of the castle, before they all shot up and almost ran each other over to get upstairs. Riff Raff was nearest to the door, so he was first, rushing out and up the steps, almost jogging to get to the zen room once he was up to the corridor. A few others were much faster than him, however, especially with his false hunchback weighing him down. His sister was one of these people, dashing by him at a speed she could only reach because she wasn't wearing heels.

He almost didn't get a good view of what was going on in the zen room, but it was, luckily enough, a very large room with plenty of space for the servants. He took in the view in front of him: the Old Queen, her face positively enraged, but her eyes spilling tears. She didn't even seem to notice the many servants that had flooded the room, her eyes instead trained on the person across from her: Cesare, his eyes pained, but determined for something. Behind the Old Queen stood Frank, with his hands firm on her shoulders, his eyes looking at his brother with moderate disgust. Carmilla stood a bit in between the two sides, a bit closer to her mother, a certain smugness coloring her expression. The Old Queen kept screaming.

" _What are you thinking? Leaving this castle? Leaving your title as crown prince? For a 'normal life?' Are you out of your mind? Has working at a hospital for crazies poisoned your brain? You cannot simply disown us!_ " She looked ready to lunge at him, only held back by her second son's hold.

"Mother, let me explain, please," Cesare said calmly, "I am not disowning you, I am simply choosing to -"

" _Oh, load of garbage, you aren't!_ " The Old Queen screamed.

"See, Mother?" Carmilla said, her voice dripping contempt and an odd self-satisfaction. "I told you he wasn't fit to be the next ruler, he's too -"

" _Shut up, you!_ " The Old Queen snapped at her daughter. " _Just because you're the one who gave me this news doesn't make you qualified to comment!_ "

Cesare gave Carmilla an aside glance and muttered sarcastically, "Nice to know I can count on you, sister."

"Howard," it was Frank who spoke this time, ice in his words. "I think you should leave now. You've upset Mother."

" _Upset me is an understatement!_ " The Old Queen's screaming continued, a fresh load of tears being shed. " _You - you've disgraced me! Disgraced this entire family! No crown prince or princess has ever left their position - you make me look like a terrible teacher! A terrible mentor! A terrible_ mother!" She pointed a stubby finger at him and yelled, " _You will not leave me, you will not disown me!_ I _will disown_ you! _I, Rosemary Furter, hereby estrange you, Howard Philip Furter, from this family! Out of my will! Out of the castle! And you are hereby freed -_ " she blinked her little eyes and a sob escaped her mouth. Riff Raff almost felt sorry for her. " _\- of the title of crown prince! Now out! Out of my house, before I have the guards shoot you!_ "

Cesare put his head down and moved to walk through the crowd of servants. They parted quickly to let him by. He looked up once to catch Riff Raff's eye and gave him an apologetic smile, and the servants gave several murmurs of "no" and "he can't really be leaving." Cesare had a reputation among the help as being the kindest of the family. . . . the one who dissuaded his mother and siblings against more severe punishments for their workers. . . .

The Old Queen only turned around and buried her face in Frank's chest, her body racked with violent crying. He held his mother, and for the first and last time, Riff Raff saw something like genuine love in his eyes.

* * *

Breakfast the next evening was a quiet affair, and Magenta could feel the tension weighing down the room. She had helped prepare and serve the meal, and now was standing of to the side of the table, her brother and a few other servants next to her, ready to come to the beck and call of the three remaining Furters.

Normally, there was some sort of conversation between them. But today it was silent. The three family members ate more neatly than anyone Magenta had seen in her life, and she was inwardly glad that they'd never viewed her own sloppy eating habits.

Frank eventually broke the silence. "Mother, sister," he said setting his fork and knife down and giving them both glances. "I'm happy to announce that I have some simply lovely news." He gave them both cheeky smiles.

"Need you announce it so loudly?" Carmilla muttered, and a harsh glance from her mother made her look away from them both.

"What is it, Frankie?" she said, her doting tone almost sickly. Frank grinned at her and giggled a bit.

"You see," he said, "when I got my degree in astrobiology at Strangelove, I didn't honestly think I'd end up doing much for it."

Magenta could see Riff Raff tense a little out of the corner of her eye. Strangelove University; astrobiology. The two things Riff Raff had wanted to do with his life, and it was Frank who got to do them instead. Because, unlike Riff Raff, he had money.

"But, it seems that the old researchers there are planning a little expedition, and they chose me to go." Frank's face seemed almost luminescent now.

"Oh, Frankie, that's lovely!" The Old Queen cried. "Where to?"

"A planet a long way away from here," Frank said, picking his utensils back up to cut some meat. "Located in the Milky Way Galaxy, right next to Transylvania. It's called Earth."

The Old Queen blinked a few times, and then her smile turned into a frown. "Frank," she said, "you do realize that _you_ are the crown prince now? That you have a duty to pick up the responsibility that that -" her fists clenched and her voice became a snarl - " _imbecile_ who must not be named decided to abandon?"

"I'm aware, Mother," Frank said, taking a bite of his food. "And rest assured, I don't plan to stay forever. A few years or so; did you know that Earthling time is identical to Transsexualite time?" He gave her an almost-charming smile, and she melted.

"Just a few years?"

"Only a few. And Earth is quite interesting to me, anyway. Its language, its people, its way of measuring time. . . . all have been found to be exactly the same as here." He grinned at them. "The scientists at Strangelove originally wanted to nuke the planet, they thought it could be a threat. But now they're thinking, perhaps it could be fit for colonization."

Magenta wanted to tune out the conversation, but the Old Queen's next sentence tuned her back in. "It sounds. . . . oh, Frankie, it sounds so dangerous! At least take a servant with you, my little love, if you really plan to go."

Magenta knew who was going to be chosen as soon as the smirk hit Frank's face.

"I _love_ that idea, Mother," he said. And then he looked up, to the person standing right next to Magenta. "Riff Raff, you ought to start preparing yourself. In a few months, we'll be Earthbound."

Carmilla snorted. "Really, brother, _that_ servant? The crazed one? We have dozens of others you could chose from, you ought to pick someone else."

For once, Magenta at least partially agreed with the bitch.

"I'm decided," Frank said, giving his sister a glare and motioning his knife toward her almost threateningly. "I want Riff Raff Vitus."

Magenta felt her insides begin to lighten. She rather suddenly was ready to throw up. _No,_ she thought. _No, he's not taking Riff Raff. He can't. Years, years without my brother, I couldn't -_

"Master," it was Riff Raff himself who spoke up. "May I speak?"

Carmilla looked ready to snap "no," but the Old Queen responded instead. "Permission to speak granted, handyman."

"If I am to go on this. . . . this trip," Riff Raff said, "then I have to make a request that I am able to take someone important with me."

"And who might that be, Riff Raff?" Frank said, a slightly dangerous look coming to his eyes.

"Magenta Vitus."

Magenta felt her own stare immediately go to him, but he firmly kept his eyes trained on Frank's face. There seemed to be a war of intensity between them, and Frank was about to open his mouth, about to form the word "no," when the Old Queen herself spoke up.

"I don't see why not. I think two servants might be even better than one, don't you, Frankie? More protection, in case any of those Earthlings try to harm you."

Frank, for once, looked ready to disagree with his mother. But then, at the very last second, he smiled. The danger never left his eyes. "Of course it would," he said. "Two is a much happier number than one, isn't it? And three. . . . three is the happiest number of them all." He stood, pausing to pat at his lips with a napkin. "Your friend may come with us, Riff Raff. All I ask is that she stay out of _trouble_."

His eyes went to Magenta, and she could almost feel them pierce her like knives. As relieved as she was that she would not be without Riff Raff for who knows how many years, she also couldn't help but wonder what the fuck they'd just gotten themselves into.

 _It doesn't matter, though,_ she thought, her eyes straying back to her brother. _I'd go to hell with you, love, and that might be exactly what I'm about to do._


	13. Forever

We have reached the end, folks. This is the last chapter. Sorry it's been taking me so long to update; life has been getting in the way.

I'm going to tell you right now, a few things are going to be left unresolved, and that's because I'm leaving more room for my sequel story: Over at the Frankenstein Place. This next one will be taking place over the course of roughly two/three years on Earth, in the time span between when the Transylvanians first show up to the night when Brad and Janet come into the picture. I really look forward to writing the next story, and much love to anyone who's interested in reading it!

Thanks a lot for all your views, for reviews, for PMing me, etc. I didn't think that this little thing would get any attention, but I'm pleasantly surprised that it did.

RHPS belongs to Richard O'Brien.

* * *

 **Chapter 13: Forever**

 _Sienna had fallen asleep in her mother's arms. Magenta felt her eyes grow droopy; it was that time, time to sleep so that she could wake up to yet another long day of child-rearing. "How rewarding are you planning to make this 'raising a child' thing for me, you little weasel?" Magenta said to her daughter. She propped her up to snuggle her closer. "I'd better be getting a fuck load of love from you, after all the literal shit I have to clean up daily."_

 _The baby only let out one little sigh. Magenta got off the bed, putting the child in her bassinet. She paused afterwards, turning to look over to the living room entry where her brother slept. She found herself walking that way until she was at the couch. Riff Raff was still out, sleeping in a sitting position with his head leaned back. She let out a small chuckle at the way his mouth hung open._

 _Slowly, she sat down next to him and adjusted the blanket so that it was covering both of them. Leaning against his shoulder, Magenta closed her eyes and felt herself begin to drift. The last thing she registered before falling asleep was Riff Raff's hand twining itself with hers, and the murmur of his voice calling her "My most beautiful sister."_

* * *

They started as soon as Riff Raff woke up.

 **Good morning, you stupid sack of shit.**

 **Your sister's still asleep. Let's strangle her.**

 **I bet the other servants will try to cut off your fingers today.**

He rolled over in the bed and pulled a pillow over his ears, but they continued. He knew that they would, no matter what he did. Everyday now, and there were so many times that he just wanted to rip his hair out from their volume, their frequency, their words. . . .

Not that he really needed to rip his hair out. He already had a nicely formed bald spot on top of his head, and only at twenty-nine years old.

 _Thirty,_ he mentally corrected himself. And then he blinked in realization and sat up to look at the calendar on the wall. Today's date was circled in red ink. Yes, today was his birthday. His thirtieth. And it was also his last day on the planet Transsexual, before he and Magenta were dragged to Earth with Frank N. Furter. Riff Raff wanted to study life on other planets, he really did, and Earth sounded absolutely fascinating. But Magenta. . . .

He turned to look at her, still fast asleep next to him, snoring just a little, her hair pooled around her head. Magenta, he knew, didn't want to leave. She loved her planet, despite everything that had plagued her life. She loved the beaches, the moon, the dancing, the songs, the cities. She didn't like her job much, but she was happy with the pay and certainly happy to have a good place to live. But she would follow him anywhere. Just like when they were small children.

He got up out of the bed as to not disturb her before plucking a small pill bottle out of the cupboard. His pills, the ones that kept him from going completely insane. He popped one in his mouth and took a long swig from a water bottle next to it. The medication had been going well, for the few months he'd been taking it. While Riff Raff and his doctor still weren't sure what was causing the problem, when he remembered Father - how at times he'd seemed to not be all there mentally, how he seemed to believe Magenta was Lavender Vitus when he was having a heavier episode - he started to suspect genetics. It seemed there might've been something in Father's DNA that made him, for lack of a better term, go mad.

When the doctor had heard of this, she immediately pinned Riff Raff's issues down to inheritance. This had made him nervous that Magenta might develop the disease, as well. Voices in your head, paranoid thoughts, terrifying delusions, seeing things that were not there. . . . all causing such stress on his body that he'd lost a good amount of weight, had his hair start falling out, and had his working life affected more than once. But it was getting to the point that, with the pills, he could easily let the voices fade into the background, a distant buzzing that was ignorable. They never left, but they could be paid no attention to.

But Magenta. . . . she had enough problems. She didn't need this disease; she already suffered from flashbacks at the slightest feel of a hand on her neck. He wasn't sure when the last time she'd hit herself was, but he caught the occasional faint bruise on her cheek. The second bottle of pills was staring at him from the cupboard next to his, almost mocking him. Her pills, the ones that calmed her in a panic.

"Happy birthday, Riffy."

Magenta herself had woken up and was blinking at him with bleary eyes, but a pleasant smile. "Thirty, huh? You're getting to be an old man."

He raised his hand to pat the bald spot on top of his head. "You don't say?"

"Yet here I am, still about six months away from turning twenty-seven," Magenta slid off the bed, slinking over to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. She gave him one long, sweet kiss before pulling away. "You know, I've always loved older men."

"Oh, I think we can both attest to that," Riff Raff teased, going back in to kiss her again. "Now, as much as I would love to stay here and be with you for the rest of the day, I do have work -"

"Mmm, no you don't," Magenta said, letting go of him and turning back to the bed. She leaned back onto the pillows and gave him a sensual smile. "I talked Frank into giving us the day off, since it will be our last day on Transsexual, as well as your birthday."

"Oh?" Riff Raff felt his own smile widening as he crossed the room and slid onto the bed. He hovered himself above her, and she reached up to stroke his chest. "That was awfully sweet of you."

Without warning, she grabbed him by the sides and flipped him so that he was on his back, and she was laying on top of him, her lips inches from his. "It's really not. I did it just as much for my benefit as I did for yours." And then she gave him a hard kiss, and for the next hour, they let themselves be slaves to their own pleasure.

* * *

"What, exactly, is a wasp cracker?"

Riff Raff was looking through the menu when Magenta pushed hers at him. One of the appetizers she was pointing to looked roughly like a cookie - but it seemed to have what looked like wasps baked into it.

"Well, Magenta, it looks like exactly what you think it is," Riff Raff said, leaning back into his seat at their boothe. They sat in what wasn't exactly a fancy restaurant, but was certainly better than any fast food place. Riff Raff had gotten to choose, since it was his birthday.

"Why would anyone bake wasps into a cracker?"

"High protein?"

"What makes it so appetizing as to put onto a menu?" She was staring at the crackers again, mildly disgusted and quite interested. "You'd think no one would even want to try this. It looks so. . . . nasty."

"How is it any different from those disgusting fried crickets you got so addicted to back in upper school?"

"Don't shame fried crickets," Magenta warned. "That shit is delicious. With these I'd be worried about getting my mouth stung."

"You want to try them, don't you?"

"Of course I do." And with that she ordered the wasp crackers as her appetizer.

"Our last Transylvanian meal, and you're ordering crackers with dead wasps baked into them," Riff Raff said. "Won't you have enough new food to try once we get to Earth?"

"I look forward to trying their alcohol more than their food," she said. With a low sigh, she leaned forward and put her head in her hands, looking at him. "Enough of that, though. How are you feeling tonight? You certainly look better."

"Do I?"

"Yes. A bit healthier."

"Well, I feel a bit healthier," he said, slowly twirling his fork between his fingers. "Though I can't deny, they're still there."

Even now, they mumbled at him from the back of his mind. **Take the knife and stab her with it.**

"Do you think that they'll ever leave?"

"No," he said with a shake of his head. "I don't. That reminds me, actually." He leaned forward so that he was looking her straight in the eye. "Have you been experiencing anything like what I have? Anything at all? Voices, odd thoughts?"

Magenta rolled her eyes a bit. "That's the fifth time you've asked me this week. The answer is still the same: no."

"I'm only making sure, my love. This is our last day here, with no medical treatment once we get to Earth, so if you need anything -"

"I've gotten all my checkups done, both physical and mental. I'm alright, Riff Raff." Then she went to change the subject. "I'm actually fairly glad we'll be leaving the Royal Castle, at least. You heard what all the servants have been gossiping about?"

Riff Raff cocked his head questioningly.

"Carmilla Furter is getting married. But that's not the horrible part." She leaned closer to him. "She's marrying her distant cousin. Marvel De Lordy."

Riff Raff almost choked on his own spittle. "De Lordy? _That_ De Lordy?"

"Yes." Magenta leaned back and murmured "thank you" as a waiter came to serve them a plate of wasp crackers. "Don't know why, I just heard that he sent a letter proposing to her and she said yes and she's going to be moving in with him. The wedding will take place at the castle itself." She grimaced and picked up a cracker. "I'm thanking whatever higher power might exist that we'll be long gone by then."

She then took a bite out of the wasp cracker and made a contemplative face while chewing. When she swallowed it, she said, "not bad" and stuffed the rest of it into her mouth. Riff Raff tentatively reached out to pick one up, but she slapped his hand away. "Get your own appetizer," she said, helping herself to another wasp cracker.

* * *

"Riff Raff, I think that your dancing skills might frighten away a few people here."

"We can't _all_ be as good as you."

They were outside of a small dance club that was lit up with electric lights and pounding the streets with music. There was an entire lot in front of the club reserved for outdoor dancing, and since the siblings loved to move to music, they'd quickly made their way there. The lights shown blue and pink, a few lighting-bolt shaped symbols - the symbol of Caligari - spraypainted in neon on the walls. The night sky was black above them, save for the smiling half moon, and the two were dancing off on their own in a small corner, surrounded by other Transylvanians. Magenta's movements were graceful and fluid, while Riff Raff's were a bit more on the spastic side. She laughed after a few particularly jerky motions of his and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him once before pulling away at the sound of the music changing.

This song. They knew this song quite well.

" _It's just a jump to the left!_ " The speakers blared.

"And then a step to the right!" They cried. The other people echoed all around them, all hopping to their lefts and stepping to their rights.

" _Put your hands on your hips, you bring your knees in tight!_ "

"But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane! Let's do the Time Warp again!"

Laughing and keeping their eyes on each other, Riff Raff and Magenta continued to dance, and when he pulled her close, they did a few quick Brachoreas before taking each other's hands and performing a much sillier version of the Tango. The song eventually ended, and they had their arms curled around each other, both laughing, both feeling giddy. Riff Raff pressed a hard kiss to her cheek and said, "If I could I'd dance with you for the rest of my life."

Magenta was quiet for a moment as they stood there, swaying, before she said back, "It's been three weeks."

"Three weeks?" He pulled back and looked at her questioningly.

The next song started, but it was a much slower number, and they continued to hold each other and sway. "Three weeks since I last hit. I'm ready to stop. At least, I think I am."

"Magenta. . . ." Riff Raff said. He reached up and stroked a pale cheek, and she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. "That's excellent news. I'm glad. . . . I'm so happy that you've chosen to do this."

"Well, it won't be easy, letting go of something that I'm so dependent on," she said. She reached up to take his hand and kiss his wrist. "But I am, to put it mildly, done with the shame and hurt that comes with this sort of habit. I'm ready to stop. For myself. And for you, but mostly for myself."

He grinned a bit and said, "I'm pleased to find out you chose this. Need someone to cheer you on?"

"The image of you as my personal cheerleader is quite erotic," she said, leaning into him again. Catching him off-guard, she nipped into his neck. He squeaked a bit and she giggled. "I love you, Riffy."

"I love you too, my angel," he said, before spinning to dip her, with her laughing as she was caught off guard.

* * *

The bad news hit them when they were in the park.

The Capital's Central Park was a mile or so across and two miles wide, and they were near the heart of it, dozing under the dark blue of the early morning sky. They'd danced until they were honestly close to dropping, and had used each other for support as they walked the short distance to the park. Now they were laying in the grass, Riff Raff on his back and Magenta using him as a pillow, nearly asleep as the light creeped further into the sky. Riff Raff had a personal communication device strapped to his wrist; he'd gotten one for the purpose of keeping in touch with his doctor. Just as he was about to fall completely to sleep, it beeped. A message.

Magenta grunted a bit as he shifted so that he could answer it. "Can't you ignore it?" she murmured. "I'm in desperate need of a nap, after all that Time Warping."

"Sorry, but I can't exactly ignore my doctor," Riff Raff said. He pushed a button and the message played.

" _Mr. Vitus, this is Doctor Nebula. I'd like to let you know that we've run into a problem concerning your long-term medication and the trip you plan on taking to the planet Earth._ "

At this, Magenta sat up and turned to pay attention. Riff Raff got up as well, listening closely to the message.

" _You might not be aware of this, but I have found that it is not a safe idea to give psychiatric patients more than three months supply of their own medication at a time, lest they abuse it. I have, however, gotten in touch with your employer, Prince Frank N. Furter, to solve this._ "

Riff Raff felt his sister's eyes on him, but he didn't move, instead staring at the device.

" _Mr. Furter, showing a full history of mental stability, will be put in charge of roughly three years supply of medications for you. He will be the one to distribute your individual pills each morning as well as oversee your progress. In addition, he will also be put in charge of Magenta Vitus's anti-anxiety medication, in order to control her flashbacks. This arrangement has been solidified and cannot be reversed. Thank you, Mr. Vitus. Have a good night._ "

There was complete silence for a good ten seconds after the message ended. And then Magenta burst out, "What the hell does she mean? Frank is going to be put in charge of our medication? For three years? That - that's the worst idea I've ever fucking heard! Didn't you work out something else - ?"

"I did," Riff Raff said, standing up. "We talked about this months ago, she agreed to give me the pills to take myself." He dialed her number on the device. "Something doesn't feel right about this."

The communicator beeped, and Riff Raff left a quick voice recording, inquiring about the arrangement and why it had been made without his or Magenta's knowledge (he was especially mystified about his sister's medication being involved, since she saw an entirely different doctor for them.) A few minutes later, he got a short response from Doctor Nebula.

" _Mr. Vitus; this arrangement has been made with your employer for the personal safety of you and Miss Vitus. No further reasoning is needed._ "

Magenta looked about ready to grab the communicator herself and scream at it, but she only looked at him and said, "This isn't right. Something about this is off. Very off. Is she usually that short with you?"

"No," Riff Raff muttered, and he felt a sense of unease settle into his stomach. Frank, completely in control of when they took their medication. . . . the medication that kept Riff Raff from going completely insane. It gave Frank a certain amount of power over him, more than he already had, and when he added in Magenta to the equation as well. . . .

"I think Frank might have threatened her into this."

"Wouldn't doubt it," Magenta growled. "That asshole just fucking loves to fuck with people -"

"What I mean is," Riff Raff said, deep in thought now, "Frank has been very. . . . _sore_ with me. Because I keep rejecting him. Because I say 'no,' and I don't believe anyone has ever told him 'no' before. He is the crown prince of the entire planet, he can impose his will on whoever he wants, and he does have certain powers of persuasion. I don't think it's unlikely that he could have threatened our doctors with some sort of punishment if they'd not done what he said. . . ."

Magenta's eyes narrowed a bit. "Do you think he wants power over your medication in order to have more control over you?"

"Yes. To prove to me that I can't just say 'no.' Because if he controls the thing that is keeping me from going mad, then he essentially is controlling my sanity itself." For the first time in a long time, Riff Raff felt the shiver of strong fear go down his back. "He is going to make me so entirely dependant on him that I eventually won't be able to say 'no' anymore. And you. . . ." he looked at her and felt a new fear. "He wants to control you too, but not as much. You aren't nearly as dependent on your medication as I am on mine, and he doesn't seem as interested in you as he is in me."

"Can't deny that he's been a shameless flirt with me," Magenta said. "But it's never gone beyond that. He's never tried to get me into his bed."

"Exactly. But he knows that if he has power over you as well, if he can put you in that same sort of danger, then I'll do anything." Defeat. That was this overwhelming feeling. Defeat. "I'll do anything to keep you safe and healthy. He knows that, he's seen us together for nearly seven years now. He thinks that if he threatens you, then he's hurting me where it will count. And he's right." His blue eyes met her green ones. "If he withholds your medication, if he makes you suffer through those flashbacks - he could likely even induce them, if he wanted - I'd do anything to protect you. Even if that means I have to -"

"No." Magenta's hands were on his shoulders and she was looking at him with a harsh intensity. "You said it yourself: I'm not as dependent on my medication. I don't need it nearly as much as you need yours. I can live without it. I can deal with the flashbacks without it. I will _not_ let you become Frank's brutalized sex slave for me. Whatever ends up happening," she pulled him a bit closer, so that he couldn't look away at all, "don't worry about me. I am not a suicidal teenager anymore and I will not be so easily manipulated."

Riff Raff could only hope that his speculations were wrong and his sister was right.

* * *

There was one last thing that happened on Riff Raff's thirtieth birthday that made it his most memorable.

When they'd returned to the castle, another maid had immediately found them and said that the princess wished to speak with them. What Carmilla wanted with them, they didn't know - they weren't even sure she was aware of their identities beyond "the crazed handyman" and "the red haired domestic."

When they reached her bedroom, she opened her door at once upon hearing their knocking. Before inviting them in, she poked her head out and looked around, her eyes suspicious, and asked them if they'd brought anyone with them. When she ushered them inside her room, they were ordered to sit in two chairs directly opposed to her bed, and she sat down on the edge of her mattress. He expression was hard and tired, her fingers gripping the edge of the bedspread. It was several moments before she spoke.

"So. You two are the only ones who will be accompanying my older brother on his expedition."

Riff Raff and Magenta both nodded, somewhat wary.

"Tell me something," Carmilla stared at them with an expression that was piercing. "How are your lives going? Do you enjoy it here? Is there anything you'd like to be different?"

This sort of question caught Magenta completely off guard. It was the sort of thing Cesare would ask, not Carmilla. She and Riff Raff were both silent for a few seconds before the princess huffed and said, "Well, don't just stare at me stupidly. Answer my questions."

There was the old bitch that was their mistress. Magenta responded with a curt, "We're fine, madam." Riff Raff only nodded in agreement.

"'Fine?' I know you're not just fine. Let me tell you two something." Her expression deepened into a scowl. "That idiot Howard - or _Cesare_ , that stupid nickname - would only ever pick up servants he deemed as poor commoners in need. In need of a job, a home, whatever. Homeless, poor, sick, starving, it didn't matter, he was far too soft to let any peasant get away from him."

Magenta felt her hands curl into fists, and Riff Raff was suddenly holding her wrist, gently stroking it with his thumb. The feel of his skin was soothing to her anger.

"I know you haven't been leading good lives because if you were, you wouldn't be here. For one thing, _you_ ," she trained her haughty eyes on Riff Raff, "are obviously sick in the head. I wouldn't doubt that it was difficult for you to keep a job before this because you never got treatment. I don't know what's wrong with you," now she set her gaze on Magenta, "but of you're so attached to him, there must be something."

At this Magenta almost stood up to yell at this cunt of a princess, but Riff Raff squeezed her wrist. Carmilla spoke again. "In any case, I do know of something that you've both been keeping in secret. It has not gone unnoticed by me that you two have the same surname." A mild disgust came to her face now. "At first, I assumed it was just a coincidence, or that you were married. I think everyone in the castle still assumes that. But I did a little research when you were chosen to accompany Frank. And I know," her expression went from slight distaste to pure revulsion, "that you two are illegal workers from the neighboring country of Orwell. And that you're brother and sister."

Silence draped itself over the room. Magenta felt her hands begin to shake, and despite Riff Raff's vise-like grip on her wrist, she spoke anyway. "What do you want from us?" she said, her voice barely steady.

"I want to make an offer." Carmilla said. "You see, I had a lot of issues with the idea of Howard someday becoming king, He was too soft, too in love with his job as a crazy people nanny to do so. And he didn't even want to rule, anyhow. He confided in me that he was considering leaving his place at the castle and his title as crown prince. I told our mother, and he was out within an hour of her knowing." A slightly cruel smile came to her lips, but it quickly turned back into a frown. "Frank, however, is far from a good choice for the next king of Transsexual. You've seen him; he doesn't want to be king either, and he's too much of a spoiled rotten brat, either way."

 _Like you can talk,_ Magenta thought.

"Beyond that, he's got too much of a temper. Transsexual would be at war with other planets constantly if someone like him was in charge. And here is where I get to my point." Her eyes darted back and forth at them. "My offer is to give you two a better life. Good jobs here in Caligari. A stable home. Medical care for your condition." She looked at Riff Raff when saying this, and then turned her stare back to Magenta. "New last names and a changed legal status. You would no longer be Riff Raff and Magenta Vitus, a brother and sister. You would be a recognized married couple. And yes, before you ask, I _do_ have the power to do all of this."

Magenta felt something grip her heart. What Carmilla was saying. . . . could she really provide all this? New names? A new home? New jobs?

Could she really have them married. . . ?

"The condition," Carmilla said, "is simple. Frank is not fit to be king. I, however, view myself as more than fit to be queen. I will be queen someday, and you two will have your normal lives. If," her eyes were like a deadly viper's, "you make sure Frank never, ever comes back from Earth."

There was no sound for the next few moments; only Carmilla's lethal gaze. Riff Raff finally spoke. "What do you mean, he never comes back?"

"Exactly that. He doesn't come back to Transsexual. I don't care if you convince him to stay there, or leave without his knowledge, or kill him. Just see to it that he doesn't return."

"I -" Riff Raff was blinking a lot, and he stuttered a bit before swallowing and speaking again. "I'm sorry, madam, I don't think we can -"

"You can," Carmilla said firmly. "And you're going to keep this." She pulled two small cards out from her pockets and held them out for the siblings to take. They had her name and number written in them. "There is a communicator on your ship that will allow you to call my number from anywhere in the galaxy. You won't be able to reach me, once you leave Transylvania, but if you two do decide to take my offer, then call me once you re-enter the solar system and I will begin to make the arrangements for your new lives. If you don't want to take my offer, then I'll find some other way to get rid of him and we will pretend that this never happened - lest the two of you want to be punished for speaking out against me." The danger in her voice was almost palpable. "Again, I don't care what you do with Frank. I really don't. But make sure he has no way of ever getting back."

She dismissed them then, and they were soon outside her door staring at each other, wondering what the hell they'd just gotten into.

* * *

The ship that they would occupy looked like nothing but a regular old castle, and the transit beam that would project them through time and space was bright and multicolored against the night sky. There had been tearful farewells between Frank and his mother, a large crowd of Transylvanians with video recorders, news anchors, and interviewers asking the three for their comments. Frank loved the attention enough to delay their boarding by two hours, simply standing there talking to the people while Riff Raff and Magenta stood close by. By the time they were finally in the ship, a few stars were beginning to disappear.

In the control room - all pink, red controls, doubling as a laboratory - they all sat, Frank walking around and admiring the scenery of his new lab. They all wore matching gold-and black Caligarian suits, their hair all up, the black lightning bolt of Caligari over their chests. They zipped past all the other planets in the solar system. . . . Pansexual, Polysexual, Demisexual, Autosexual, Objectumsexual. . . . and then they were gone, speeding toward the edge of Transylvania, toward a wormhole that would transport them straight into the Milky Way galaxy.

"Oh, isn't it simply lovely?" Frank was almost moaning out, giggling as he spun a bit under the transparent roof. "The lives of Earthlings, all ours to play with! Do you think they'll be as beautiful as I've heard from my college professors? Oh, I can't wait. . . ."

He interrupted himself with a long yawn, went to rave to them again, and yawned again. He paused his speech and smiled at them a bit, before murmuring, "I think I'm getting a little tired. Not much sleeping was being done in my bed yesterday."

This much was true; Riff Raff and Magenta had heard Frank pleasuring two servants from all the way down in the kitchens.

"I'm going to make for my bedroom. Feel free to join me, if either of you like," he said, giving them - particularly Riff Raff - a sensual smile before he slunk away to the elevator, leaving them alone.

They sat quietly at the control panel, and Magenta scooted closer to Riff Raff and slid an arm around him. She said, "I almost feel like I'm in some sort of limbo right now."

"As do I, my darling."

"A whole other world. . . ." She leaned against him, and he put a hand on her knee. "For three years. With Frank."

"Let's try not to think of this as being stuck with Frank," Riff Raff said. "Let's. . . . let's do the Time Warp."

She looked up at him, a bit surprised at this sudden change in subject, but she got up, welcome to the distraction.

"It's just a jump to the left," she said, and they jumped. "And then a step to the right."

"Put your hands on your hips," Riff Raff said, and there it was, a small smile on his sister's face. "You bring your knees in tight!"

"But it's the pelvic thrust!" she said, forcing her hips forward. "That really drives you insane!"

"Let's do the Time Warp again!"

They were smiling and laughing by the end of their dance, and she moved her arms forward for a Brachorea, Riff Raff doing the same. When they slid their arms down, he pulled her to him and kissed her before saying, "As long as you are by my side, my love, then I will be content forever."

She kissed him once more. "My most beautiful brother," she murmured against his lips, and when their arms were wrapped around each other again, they forgot entirely about Earth or Transsexual or Frank for a long time.


End file.
